Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He’s sitting alone, book in one hand, pen in the other. You’re twenty-four, still too young to feel so tired. When you see him it reminds you that there’s no such thing as a blank slate. And you know, you just know, that Gilmore women never really fall out of love, because as soon as you see him, the years don’t matter, as soon as you see him, it’s like it was before. All of a sudden, you’re seventeen and dizzy.

He doesn’t even look up from his book.

*****

Hep Alien was halfway through their third song by the time Rory made it to the bar. She blamed her mother; years of her influence had finally made Rory into the habitual latecomer she’d been destined to become. The genes had been dormant, but there was no pretending that they weren’t there.

She sat at the bar and ordered a beer. There was gunk on the side of the glass, but she didn’t drink during the week anyway. She’d known that, but had ordered it anyway. A bad habit, from nights spent trying to keep up with Logan’s friends. It had been years, but she couldn’t break it, just as she could never watch the Donna Reed show without inventing imaginary arguments with Dean about gender roles, telling him everything she wasn’t brave enough to before.

The song ended, and Rory clapped as loudly as she could. The dark lighting made it hard for her to really see Lane, but she knew without looking that her best friend was in her element, here in a dive bar in the city. It was, as Lane was constantly reminding her, how all of the greats had started out. The gross bikers and the stains on the walls were proof that they were on their way to making it big.

“Hey, it beats touring churches in Gil’s sandwich van,” Lane had pointed out when she’d told Rory where they’d be playing.

Rory had barely remembered that that tour had happened. A lot of things from that period of time were like that, blurry.

It took her two more songs to notice Jess.

He was sitting at a table by himself, pen in hand, poised to write something in the book he was carrying. He always wrote in pen, confident enough in his thoughts that he was sure he wouldn’t want to erase them later. Rory was always erasing things she had once been sure of. She kept her eyes trained on the band, but they kept slipping back to him. It took her a few minutes to recognize what it was she was feeling.

Who did he think he was, ignoring everything around him like that?

She slipped off her stool and walked to his table. “You know, you’re supposed to pay attention to the band.” She crossed her arms and waited. The air was thick with dust.

Jess looked up from his book. “Who says I’m not paying attention?”

“You’re reading a book. Why did you come all the way here to do something you could have done at home? It’s rude.”

“Do you wanna sit down, or do you prefer to loom over me when you’re lecturing me about manners?”

Rory hesitated, then sat. The chair was sticky against her bare legs. “What are you doing here?”

Jess raised his eyebrows. “Well, I heard that if I sat here with a book long enough, a sanctimonious journalist would decide it was her duty to tell me how to behave. You know, I just live for these celebrity sightings.”

“How did you—”

“Know you were a journalist? Don’t act so surprised, Gilmore.” He took a swig of beer; he’d gone the smarter route and ordered a bottle. “I’ve been keeping up with your bylines ever since I realized you were writing for the New Yorker. I especially liked the one about flagday in Denmark.”

Rory looked down at the scratches on the table’s surface. “I’m only writing small pieces right now, but getting paid to write anything’s amazing. Anyway, I didn’t mean what are you doing at this bar, I meant why are you in New York? What happened to Philadelphia?”

“It’s still there,” Jess said. He’d closed the book now, but still had a finger between the pages, holding his place. “I just wanted to come home for a little while.”

“Oh.” Rory couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“How’s Lorelai?” Jess asked.

“She’s… Lorelai, I guess.” Rory shrugged helplessly. “I should go. They’re finishing up their set, and I promised Lane we’d get coffee once they were finished.”

“They’re good,” Jess said. “Gone a bit too Foghat for me, but tell Lane she nailed that drum solo.”

“They have not gone Foghat,” Rory said, rolling her eyes. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Jess said. By the time Rory had made her way to the corner where the band was set up, he had already resumed his reading.

“Is that Jess you were just talking to?” Lane asked as Rory helped her take apart the drum kit. “Because if it was, I want to know why he wasn’t paying any attention to the awesomeness that is my band."

“Oh, he was paying attention,” Rory said. “He said to tell you that he liked your drum solo. Where are the boys tonight?”

“Mama’s babysitting. She loves when I leave them alone with her because it gives her a chance to cram all of the Bible lessons she can think of in their heads. But come on, you’ve gotta give me something. What is he doing here?”

Rory looked back at the boy who’d scribbled in her margins all those years ago. “Why does Jess ever do anything?” she replied. “Come on, let’s get this packed so we can get coffee.”

*****

He’d seen a flier weeks ago and known she’d be there, but he’d been so busy planning to show up that he hadn’t thought of what to say.

She’d sounded like Lorelai. Jess had wanted to tell her that, but of course she already knew. People tended to turn out like their parents. He’d wanted to ask her which parent he’d gotten the most of, although he wasn’t sure if it made much difference whether he was more like Liz or Jimmy.

He ordered another beer, with no intention of drinking it. Thought about Luke’s reengagement to Lorelai, changed his mind, and drank it. People were supposed to end up like their parents, but maybe Jess had ended up like Luke, because that was the only other person he knew who loved one woman and never looked back. Only Luke had had a fighting chance. Luke hadn’t met Lorelai when they were too young and stupid to make it work. Luke hadn’t left.

Maybe he wasn’t like Luke after all.

When Jess finally went back to his apartment after two more beers, he realized that maybe he was as much of a mess as he’d ever been, underneath everything else that was there.

*****  

Rory’s room was still her room, a shrine to a life that didn’t feel like hers. If she looked in the wardrobe, she was sure she’d see her Chilton uniform, hanging as though she were about to put it on and go take an important test. This was the room where she’d gotten ready for school and parties, read Dostoevsky for the first time, hid when she was fighting with her mother. Written a hundred pro/con lists about a hundred inconsequential things.

(Where she’d had sex with Dean.)

Where she’d gone during school breaks, where she’d kept books she couldn’t bring herself to retrieve the semester she’d broken down and left. The room she’d shared with Gigi for the 50 days that constituted the marriage of Christopher and Lorelai.

(Where Logan had slept by her side when he’d visited.)

She wanted to burn it to the ground.

25 was a red letter year. Nobody would let her forget that, which was why she was here, looking over the books she’d read, surrounded by the ghosts of women she could have become. Thinking of decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse, or however the poem went.

Her mother poked her head in the door. “You ready?”

“Ready for what?” Rory turned away from the bookshelf.

“Dinner at Luke’s!”

“I thought Luke was coming here to make dinner.”

Lorelai waved her hand as though waving away the very notion of Luke cooking at their house. “Don’t be ridiculous. I have to get you out of the house so that Babette and Miss Patty can set up for your surprise party.”

Rory reached for the sweater that was hanging over her chair. “You know, when most people throw surprise parties they keep it a secret from the guest of honor. You’re throwing years of time honored tradition out the window.”

“But if I hadn’t told you there was a surprise party, you wouldn’t have wanted to leave New York. I tried to get you to come here, but no, you wanted me to come to New York instead. Come on! Luke’s making you a special birthday dinner. Three kinds of cake and no vegetables.”

“I have no problem with vegetables. You’re the one who refuses to eat vegetables.”

“Are you lying?”

“Yes.”

“That’s my girl. Let’s go! But leave the door unlocked so that Babette and Miss Patty can get in!”

Rory looked around the room, sighed deeply, and followed her mother out of the back door.

*****

At first she thought he was just another ghost. It’d make sense; she’d been seeing her past flash before her eyes ever since she’d gotten back to Stars Hollow. Not to mention that he’d been on her mind since the concert two weeks ago. But then he smirked, and before Rory knew it she  was walking over to where he stood by the window and demanding, “What are you doing here?”

“Miss Patty invited me. Said something about wanting the past to be so vivid you’d forget you ever left. She must have gotten my number from Luke.”

Rory looked out the window onto the porch. “They’re never going to forgive me for moving, are they?”

“Prob’ly not.”

“Wait,” Rory said, turning to look at him. “You don’t think they invited—did they?”

“You mean the creep you were with in college? Nah, he’s not from around here, they wouldn’t have invited him. Although, come to thinking it, I think she did say something about—”

“Rory!” called an unmistakable voice. Rory turned around and saw Paris walking determinedly towards her. “Thank God. If I have to explain the difference between a surgeon and a doctor to one more person, my head might actually explode. Do you even have a hospital in this town?”

“Paris, it’s so good to see you!” Rory said, throwing her arms around her friend. “Is Doyle here too?”

Paris stiffened, even more so than she usually did when hugged. “We broke up last month.”

“Oh, Paris!” Rory said, letting go. “You should have called me. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, he’s fine, everything’s just fine, can we please not talk about it?” Paris noticed Jess. “Oh, you. You still think Jane Austin would have liked Bukowski?”

“Yep.”

“Typical. I’m going to get a drink. Happy Birthday, Rory.”

Jess watched her walk away, then turned back to Rory. “She’s mellowed out.”

“She really has.”

“So, I was worried that Patty had invited Paul Bunyan, but he seems like a no-show,” Jess said, returning to their previous conversation.

“Yeah, Dean moved back to Chicago pretty soon after…” Rory trailed off, realizing exactly what circumstances had led to Dean’s departure.

Jess touched her shoulder gently. “‘Sall right. Luke told me what happened.”

Rory looked back out the window. “Sounds like Luke’s been feeling chatty lately.”

“I think your mother’s been a bad influence.”

Finally, a safe topic. “I’d believe that. The other day I heard him make a pop culture reference.”

Jess faked a gasp. “No!”

“Yes! Granted, it was a bit dated, but a pop culture reference nevertheless!”

“And people say there’s no news in small towns.” Jess grinned. It sent her reeling for a moment, a little whisper of emotion like the notes he’d always written on her receipts at Luke’s.

“Will you be at the wedding?” Rory flinched at the formality of her own voice.

Jess nodded. “Yeah. It’s the least I can do, after all Luke’s done for me. God, I hated him when they first made me move here.”

“I remember.” Rory said. She was suddenly too aware of her arms, and crossed them in front of her chest.

“I wasn’t used to people sticking around. Probably why I—but Luke’s a great guy. I’m glad they finally worked things out.”

Rory was about to respond when she heard Babette’s laughter from the couch. They weren’t as alone as she felt like they were, and suddenly she realized how unfair it was that she was ignoring everyone else this way, after all they’d done for her. “I should probably go mingle. Say hello to your mom and TJ for me.” Formal again, like she’d learned in the DAR. Or other, less nice words. Distant. Detached. Going, Going, Gone. She went to the kitchen to get herself a drink.

Sookie was putting something in the oven, and turned guiltily when Rory approached.

“Please don’t tell your mother. I know I was only supposed to do four desserts, but I just had the most amazing—Key lime pie! I figured I’d just—I can sneak it onto the table when she’s not looking, I promise she won’t notice—”

“Notice what?” Lorelai asked, sauntering into the room. “Sookie!” she scolded. “I told you, we have plenty of—”

Rory escaped into the living room, not in the mood to hear the ensuing argument, the same one she’d been hearing almost her entire life.

“Rory!” Babette called. “C’mere, sugar, and tell us all about your job at the New Yorker. I keep tellin’ Maury we need to pick us up a copy at the newsstand one of these days, ain’t that right, Maury?”

“That’s right.”

“We were all so surprised, when you up and left the presidential gig for someone else to take. Not that we blame ya, of course!”

“It was all just a little fast paced for me after the inauguration,” Rory said, sitting across from them. If the words sounded a little bit forced, it was only because she’d had to say them so many times. “I don’t want to spend my whole career writing about politics.” Jess was still standing by the window, arguing with Paris about something. Rory couldn’t hear their conversation.

“Well, of course you don’t, that’s just what your mother said. I think it was damn smart of you to get out of there when you did! And of course, it must be nice for you to be so much closer to home!”

“Yeah it is,” Rory said. She accidentally made eye contact with Jess, and in that moment she knew that he knew that she was a fraud.

The evening dragged on. People didn’t start leaving until around midnight, but by 1:00 only Paris was left.

“I can help you clean up, if you want,” she said quickly.

“It’s okay, we probably won’t start until tomorrow anyway.”

Paris looked desperate. “But you at least need to clean up the food, right? Food can go bad, if you leave it out too long. And it attracts insects. You wouldn’t want to wake up tomorrow with ants all over your kitchen.”

“Sookie took the food home already.”

“Decorations, then. If we clean them up now, you won’t have to do it tomorrow, which clears up hours of time with which you could—”

“Paris, do you by any chance want to spend the night here?” Rory asked, half annoyed, half pleased.

“Could I? I told Doyle he could pick up the rest of his stuff tonight, since I’m not there. I’m not scared to run into him,” she said quickly. “I just don’t want this to be any more difficult than it has to be. Break-ups shouldn’t be drawn out. When it’s over, it’s over.”

“Right,” Rory said, rolling her eyes. “Come on, you can stay in my room. My mom never got rid of the trundle bed.”

“It’s so weird that you still have a room here.”

“Hey!”

“Well, it is.”

Rory sighed. “I know. Hey Mom!” she called up the stairs. “Paris is spending the night.”

“Okay, then you’d better both be up and ready for breakfast tomorrow! I had to promise Sookie that I’d let her cook for you while you were here.”

“She cooked for tonight.”

“I know, but she wants to cook something special just for you.”

“Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“‘Night!”

An hour later, Paris’ voice broke through Rory’s sleeplessness. “Rory? Are you awake?”

“It’s two in the morning,” Rory said. She tried to sound annoyed, but truth be told, it wasn’t that unusual for her to be up this late anymore. “What do you want?”

“Turn on the light. I want to look at you while I’m talking to you.”

Rory flipped on the lamp and rolled over onto her side, making a point of sighing loudly as she did so.

Paris was sitting cross-legged on the trundle bed, a look of determination on her face.  “I’m ready to tell you why Doyle and I broke up.”

“Why?”

“Well, because you’re my best friend, and if there’s anyone I’m going to talk to—”

“No, I mean why did you break up?”

“Oh.” Paris looked down at her hands, which were uncharacteristically folded in her lap. “I told Doyle I was bisexual. He didn’t take it too well.” Her voice sounded thin.

“You’re—what?”

“Bisexual? As in dates girls as well as guys? God, Gilmore, don’t go all Dan Savage on me. It is possible to be attracted to more than one gender.”

“I’m just surprised! How long have you known?”

“Seventh grade. Madeleine and Louise wanted to practice kissing so they’d know how to do it when they got boyfriends, which happened surprisingly soon after that. Lord knows how, but they talked me into it.” Paris looked at Rory intently. “Okay, you need to tell me what’s going on in your head right now, because you not saying anything is starting to freak me out. What’s your take on the situation? Are we Buffy and Willow, or Ross and Carol?”

“What?”

“Well, when Willow came out Buffy was surprised, but ultimately supportive. When Carol came out to Ross, he flipped, and they never really went back to how they’d been before. I just need to know where we stand.”

“Ross only flipped out because he and Carol were married. I don’t think you and I will be having quite that problem.”

“Rory, I’m serious,” Paris said, sounding almost pleading. “You’re my best friend. I need to know that you’re okay with this.”

“Of course I am! God, how could you think I wouldn’t be?”

“Well, I had to be sure. I thought that Doyle would be fine with it too, and look how that turned out.”

“Hey, if Doyle doesn’t love you the way you are, then he doesn’t deserve you.”

“I know,” Paris said, looking away. “But sometimes I wonder if anyone ever will love me the right way.”

“They will. I promise.”

“I guess.”

“They will. It just takes time. It took my mom until now to figure it out, and she’s done pretty darn well.”

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe your mom’s just lucky, and that the rest of us aren’t going to have it that easy?”

“Of course not,” Rory said, a little more forcefully than was strictly necessary. “Now, go to sleep.”

“Okay. Good night, Rory.”

“Good night, Paris.”

*****

“I’m so bummed you have to go back to New York tomorrow,” Lorelai said. “Are you sure you can’t stay another few days? You only got back three days ago.”

“I’ll be back in November to help with the wedding preparations!”

“And think of how much easier things would be if you didn’t have to go back and forth!”

“Coffee?” Luke asked, pouring it for them before they could answer.

“Thanks, Babe.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

“What do you want me to call you then?”

“Preferably, nothing that any soap opera couple would ever be caught dead using.”

“So I guess ‘Hubby’ is out too? Not that I can actually call you hubby until January, but come on, it’s a classic.”

Luke turned to Rory. “Could you make your mother shut up?”

“Sorry. I’ll let you know if I find the off switch, but until then, there’s nothing I can do.”

“Luke!” Kirk called from the counter. “Can I get a new PB and J? This one has peanut butter on it.”

Luke turned around to reply. “Why, yes, Kirk, yes it does. You have expressed exactly the feature that makes it a PB and J.”

“Well, I didn’t want peanut butter. Lulu says it gets stuck in my mouth too long and makes my breath smell weird.”

“Then why did you order a PB and J, Kirk?”

“I like ordering it. It’s what I always get. How come Lorelai and Rory always get to order the same thing and I don’t?”

“Because you shouldn’t order food that has an ingredient you don’t want to eat.”

“Can you just make me a new one? My mom said I could only be gone for twenty minutes, and it’s already been thirteen.”

“How exactly am I supposed to make you a new PB and J when the problem you have with this one is—Oh, for God’s sake, I’ll just make you a jelly sandwich, would that make you happy?”

“Yes.”

Luke turned back to Lorelai and Rory. “Apparently I have to go and make a jelly sandwich.”

“See you tonight, Pookums,” Lorelai said.

“No pet names!” Luke called as he walked off.

Lorelai turned back to Rory. “See, if you stay here, you can enjoy the continuing saga of Kirk and his sandwiches. No entertainment like this in New York, my friend.”

“Sorry, but if I’m going to be submitting electronically for two months I have to spend some time actually at the paper right now.”

“Fine. But you’re still coming to Friday Night Dinner next week, right? I don’t think I can face another night alone with my parents.”

“Yes, I’ll be there next week.”

“Good.”

“So, this may be a stupid question, but why exactly do we still come to Luke’s every day? He could cook for you just as easily at home.”

“Why do people always ask me this?” Lorelai said.

Rory looked out the window towards the town square as her mother continued her rant. She could practically hear Miss Patty counting beats for dance lessons, although she knew from a realistic standpoint that her hearing couldn’t really be that good. The people in the square looked like they always had. The whole town was like a greeting card from a place that the card’s receiver resents because no place could possibly that picturesque.

“Rory!” Taylor yelled, cutting across Lorelai’s speech. “Just the girl I was hoping to see. I hear you’ll be in town in December?”

Rory winced slightly. “Yes.”

“Good!” He sat down at the table with them. “Now, I know that it’s still a few months away, but you know what they say about planning ahead.”

“What?”

“Well, um, that you should do it. Look, I was just hoping to have a word with you about this year’s Winter Carnival. Now, you’ll have some time to think about it, but what I wanted to know was whether you would be willing to be the Sugar Plum Fairy for my candy booth.”

“Sugar Plum Fairy?”

“Yes.”

Rory cast about for an excuse. “Well, Taylor, to be honest with you, I’m not really sure I’m the Sugar Plum Fairy type.”

“Nonsense, of course you are! Why, I was just telling Miss Patty—”

“Taylor, I’m sorry, but I am not interested,” Rory said firmly

Taylor looked as though he’d just been forced to suck a lemon. “Young lady, I hate to say this, but you are not the Rory Gilmore this town knew and loved! I thought maybe now that you’ve finished sowing your wild oats and settled down nearby, you’d start to participate again. I mean, after all the town has done for you—”

“Taylor,” Lorelai said, waving wildly. “She’s not interested. But if you want, I can hang a sign at the inn and see if there’s anyone else who might want to.”

Kirk turned from the counter. “Lulu can do it!”

“There you go,” Lorelai said. “Ask Lulu to do it.”

Taylor looked at her witheringly, then left the dinner without another word.

“I love making Taylor so mad he can’t talk.” Lorelai grinned, then looked at Rory’s cup. “You’re not drinking your coffee. In all the time I’ve known you, you have never once let a cup of coffee sit in front of you without drinking it.”

“Well, I was on the road for a long time. Maybe I’ve switched to tea.”

Lorelai gasped in mock horror. “You are not my child."

Her tone was lighthearted, but there was something like worry underneath it. Rory quickly lifted the mug to her mouth to take a sip. Luke’s coffee, like everything else in the town, had remained exactly the same.

She could barely swallow it.

Chapter Text

Love is a story she tells herself each night before falling asleep.

The first time she falls, it’s Cinderella, and Madeleine and Louise and all the other stepsisters are watching with something resembling respect as her Prince spins her around on the dance floor. She’s having so much fun at the ball that she doesn’t even notice her carriage turning back into a pumpkin as the clock strikes twelve.

Second is the Beast, in his beautiful fortress of books and roses with sharp thorns. She’s alone, and scared and she knows that nobody thinks she wants to be here. But the Beast is good, really, and she can’t help but think that if people can’t see beyond the thorns, they don’t deserve the rose anyway.

The third time she’s Sleeping Beauty, only the princess hasn’t even realized she was sleepwalking through things until she’s not anymore. She’s bled before, pricking her finger on other boy’s thorns, but she’s made a bandage of parties and risk-taking. The Prince can dance, and talk nice to her grandparents, and the fairy who cursed her through genetics, hardwired her to be unlucky in love, has been banished from the kingdom.

There’s a fourth, but he was nobody, just a man who didn’t know how to dislodge the apple from her throat, leaving her to cough it up herself. Fourths aren’t important, or at least that’s the story she tells herself.

*****

There was one book on Rory’s shelf that she avoided looking at most of the time. She’d kept the poems in a folder for years, but for her 24^th birthday Roger had bound them into a book. (Things had fallen apart soon afterwards.) He’d teased her about the Dorothy Parker ones (“Can they really be considered love poems?”) and had frowned over the Margaret Atwood, but they were all there in the book. He’d gotten the order wrong; the Dean poems were all mixed up with the Logan ones, but she didn’t want to explain that the poetry was chronology, a story of her life. It didn’t matter anyways; she knew which poems went with which time period.

There was Dorothy Parker’s Love Song (“… My own dear love, he is all my world—/ And I wish I’d never met him”) for 11^th grade; there was Marilyn Hacker for the beginning of her time with Logan (You did say, need me less and I’ll want you more) and One Art for when they broke up for good (The art of losing isn’t hard to master;/so many things seem filled with the intent/to be lost that their lost is no disaster). Roger didn’t have his own section, just a few scattered poems, because Roger rarely reminded her of poetry. He reminded her of news print, of champagne, of documentaries. Of her mother’s ill-fated engagement to Max Medina. (To actually compare the two would be giving Freud too much credit; he was like the engagement, not Max himself.) Roger was solid, respectable. Someone both her mother and her grandparents could approve of.

The Jess poems were the most out of order, but she’d long since stopped expecting chronology to apply to him. He was the marginal notes in every book they’d ever shared.  He was smoke coming from a faraway house fire, so beautiful that you can almost forget that somebody had to burn for this.

These were the men that she had loved, bound neatly as though they could be contained, put away only to look at on special occasions. It wasn’t as all-encompassing as a boyfriend box, but if there was one thing Rory Gilmore was good at, it was travelling light.

*****

The smog-filled streets of Manhattan were a breath of fresh air. People walked fast crossed streets didn’t talk avoided eye contact. Prided themselves on their ability to drink bad coffee. Rory could do all of these things too now. She could now gulp down the worst cups of coffee she could have imagined without batting an eye. The city swallowed her whole. It worked, like a bad habit.

She did know a few places, though, with coffee that rivaled Luke’s, and she was in one such place now. She was waiting for a coworker who was going to stay in her apartment for what Rory referred to in her head as The Duration. It wasn’t the nicest place; her pay was barely enough to live off of in Manhattan and her apartment reflected this. But it was close to work and left her enough money to afford food. Anyway, as far as apartments went it was adequate. Her view was of another identical building, and her bed was two feet from her kitchen counters, but it was hers. Richard and Emily would be appalled and probably insist on paying for a nicer place, had they ever set foot in the place. As it was, they were just please she was living close enough to come to Friday Night Dinner, which Emily still hosted, albeit sporadically.

Shana slid into the seat across from her. “Sorry I’m late! I was walking past St. John the Divine and I realized that it’s the backdrop to one of my favorite books from when I was a kid. I just had to go in and see if it looked how I pictured!” She pushed her kinky hair back into place behind her ear and went to order her coffee.

When she returned, Rory asked, “Which kid’s book is set in the cathedral? You know, that sounds familiar, but I just can’t think of what it was.”

“The Young Unicorns.”

“Oh yeah, I have read that! The church had all sorts of secret passages, right?” Rory wrapped her hands around the warm mug, letting the heat transfer.

“Exactly. But from the looks of it, the real life church has a depressing lack of passageways.”

“That’s too bad.”

“So, you said you’re looking to sublet your apartment for a few months?”

“Yeah. Just temporarily. I’m taking some time away from the city. November through January. I might need to spend a few nights here, though.”

Shana laughed. “That won’t be a problem. Just let me know in advance and I can crash with my boyfriend. That’s what he’d like me to do permanently, but I’m not about that kind of commitment, you know?”

“Okay, so you’re fine with me staying a few nights as needed?” Rory clarified.

 “Of course. So tell me, why are you spending three months away?”

“My mom’s getting married. I was already visiting her for Christmas, so she decided I should come for longer to help her plan.” For some reason, Rory found herself focusing more on the rough grain of the table than on Shana. She forced herself to resume eye contact, a strategy she’d been working on for years. She’d never quite gotten over being shy, just better at hiding it.

“God, I can’t imagine spending three months with my mother, ” Shana said. “You two must be close.”

“We are.” Somehow, that wasn’t enough. She needed to make Shana (and maybe herself) understand that this trip back to Stars Hollow was a good thing. “And going home’s fun. I went back all the time in college. My mom lives in this tiny town where everyone knows everyone else, and everyone who lives there is really eccentric.”

Shana wrinkled her nose. “I couldn’t do the whole small-town thing. Too white.”

“Actually, Stars Hollow has a pretty large Korean community,” Rory said, a little too quickly. “I think my friend Lane was set up with every Korean guy in a ten mile radius during high school. Her mom had her whole future planned out. She was supposed to marry a doctor.”

“Oh yeah? I assume she didn’t.”

“She married a musician instead. They’re in a band together.”

“Oh, is that who you went to hear last month? You said something about that.”

“Yeah, that was them.” Rory looked around the coffee shop, feeling oddly as though she were back in Stars Hollow and somebody was about to come up to her and join the conversation. She was relieved to find that she recognized no one.

“What about your mom, did she have any big plans for your future?”

It took Rory a minute to realize that she had been asked a question. “Harvard, then journalism. But it was what I wanted, too.”

“I thought you went to Yale.”

“Yeah,” Rory said, staring past Shana out the window. “I did go to Yale.”

“I still think it’s nuts that you grew up somewhere that small. I couldn’t do it. Don’t you find it suffocating, living somewhere where everyone knows you? I wouldn’t want everyone knowing my business like that.”

Rory’s mind flashed to the town’s reaction when she’d broken her arm, but she suppressed the thought. “I liked it. It was a good place to grow up.”

Shana shook her head. “Crazy. Now, we should talk rent…”

*****

It took an hour and fifty nine minutes to get from Manhattan to Hartford with no traffic, that is, if you trusted Google maps, which Rory wasn’t sure she did. In the more plausible circumstance that there was traffic on a Friday night, it took considerably longer, leading to apologetic calls to grandparents because she could never bring herself to leave at 4:00 when she doesn’t have to be there until 6:45.

“I’m pulling off the freeway now,” she assured her grandmother at 7:15. “I’ll be there in just a few minutes.”

“Dinner is waiting, Rory.”

“I know, Grandma. I’m really sorry.”

“You should really start leaving earlier. I know that you have work, but surely your boss understands that there’s such thing as family obligation. It’s not as though we have these dinners more than once a month! Surely you can get out of work early that often.”

“I have to hang up so I don’t get pulled over. I’ll be there in a minute.”

When she arrived they went straight to the table, where the salad had already started to wilt. Emily glared at it as they sat down. “I told that maid to wait until you’d arrived to set it out!”

“It’s all right, Grandma. I’m sure it’ll be good anyway,” Rory said. Please don’t punish the maid because I was late.

“That’s not the point! I don’t care whether the salad is good, I care that I gave that girl specific instructions and she chose to disobey them!”

“Well, she’s probably terrified to put anything out late after what happened Monday,” Lorelai said.

“Monday?” Rory asked.

“I was here to talk about the wedding, remember? And when I stayed for diner the maid put the salad out at one minute past seven, and Mom threw a fit.”

“I did not throw a fit,” Emily said haughtily.

“Mom, you were like the Cookie Monster when he’s gone too long without chocolate.”

“I was not! I simply told her that if she couldn’t do the job I requested, she’d be better off finding another career. And I suggested that she not try to become a dancer, since she lacks the sense of timing necessary for ballet.”

“Grandma!”

“Well, it’s true.”

“Why don’t we move on to a more pleasant subject,” Richard suggested, adjusting his bow tie.

Rory took a bite of her salad, trying to ignore the hunger pangs she felt at the smell wafting in from the kitchen.

“Yes, let’s,” Emily said. “Rory, have you heard from Logan Huntzberger lately?”

Rory was prepared for the question; she’d known it had to come eventually. “He sent me a friend request on Facebook, but I didn’t see it until a few days ago. I don’t go on much.”

Emily looked scandalized. “Facebook? What’s that, some sort of ghastly online photo album of people’s expressions?”

“It’s just a website for friends to keep in contact,” Rory said.

“Well, I don’t know if you would have seen it on this website, but Logan is doing very well in California. He’s moving up through his company quite quickly, and I have it on good authority that he’s on his way to becoming very wealthy, completely independent of his father’s money.”

“He’s a bright boy, that Logan,” Richard said, all but winking at Rory.

“He’s seeing this horrible woman though,” Emily said gravely.

“Oh, dreadful,” Richard agreed. “He brought her to the Huntzberger’s Christmas party last year, and she never spoke for more than five straight minutes about anything but tennis. Seems she’s an amateur athlete of some sort.”

Rory tried to focus solely on the salad in front of her. One of the cherry tomatoes had a large bruise on it, but she speared it on her fork and ate it anyway.

“He seemed miserable with her,” Emily said. She looked at Rory slyly and said, “You know, if you go to see him the next time he’s in the area, I’m sure he’d love to get coffee with you.”

“Hold on,” Lorelai said, holding up her hands. “You’re not seriously trying to set Rory up with a guy who not only broke up with her two and half years ago, but already has a girlfriend?”

“I’m not trying to set Rory up with anyone, Lorelai. I’m simply suggesting that two old friends get a cup of coffee and catch up. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

“No, but—”

“Just because you didn’t like the boy doesn’t mean that he isn’t still a part of Rory’s life. Didn’t she just say he sent her some sort of request on that website?”

“Mom, everyone adds everyone on  Facebook! It doesn’t mean anything. I think Marsha Lewis from my kindergarten class friended me, do you want me to start dating her?”

“Lorelai, you are getting hysterical.”

“This is really good salad, Grandma,” Rory said. “I like the walnuts.”

Everyone ignored  her.

“You just can’t let things go, can you? You pick a man you like, and that has to be the right one, never mind what’s best for Rory. It shouldn’t surprise me, you did it with me and Christopher! You just keep pushing and pushing, and you won’t even think about—”

“That’s enough,” said Richard firmly. “Now, this is supposed to be a pleasant dinner. None of us see Rory as much as we’d like, and I will not spend the limited time we do have with her listening to you quarrel with your mother, do you understand?”

“Yes, Dad,” Lorelai said sullenly.

“Very good. Now, Emily, as we’ve all finished our salads, perhaps it is time to see where that maid got off to so she can bring us the next course.”

*****

“That dinner was completely deceptive,” Lorelai said as they walked towards their cars.

“I agree.” Rory pulled her coat tighter around herself.

“It smelled so good! How could it have tasted that way?”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

Lorelai grinned. “So, should we make up for it with a second dinner at Luke’s?”

Rory resisted looking down. “Actually, I think I’m just going to head home tonight.”

Lorelai looked startled. “Head home? You never ‘just head home’ after Friday Night Dinners. Sweetie, do you really want to spend the next three hours driving?”

“I’ll be fine. Anyway, it’s nine at night, maybe it won’t take that long.”

“But it’s after nine on a Friday night, when all the bad Connecticut kids leave for New York to go clubbing.” Lorelai had moved on to a playful tone. “Come on, we can watch The Godfather. Much better use of three hours.”

“Mom, I just really want to go home.”

 “Um, okay,” Lorelai said, looking down and then quickly back up. “If that’s what you want. You should go.”

“I’ll call you on Sunday.”

“Good.”

They looked at each other.

“Bye, Mom,” Rory finally said, hugging Lorelai tightly.

“Bye, Kid.”

Traffic wasn’t as bad as it had been on the way to dinner, but the drive still dragged on. By New Rochelle, Rory was scared she might fall asleep at the wheel. She pulled off the freeway and into the city in search of coffee. After a few minutes of driving, she found a 24 hour diner and parked.

The diner was mostly empty; there were two people drinking coffee and a group of teenagers that seemed to be leaving. Rory sat down at a dusty corner table. There was no point in trying to get her drink to go; unlike Lorelai, she had never mastered the skill of drinking coffee while driving.

“What’ll you have, dear?” the matronly waitress asked.

“Could I get a 16 ounce coffee please?”

“Coming right up. Is that all you want?”

“Yes.”

The diner was small and dark. There was a jukebox in the corner, and as the teenagers were leaving one of them fed it a dollar and set it to play a Clash song. “Ah, but which Clash song?” she could hear Jess’ voice asking in her mind. She ignored it and went to sit down.

After a few minutes, the waitress set down the coffee in front of Rory. “Here you are, dear.”

“Thanks.”

Rory was finished drinking by the time the song was over. Not wanting to wait, she went to the counter to pay. All in all, the whole thing took less than five minutes, and then she was back at her car, turning the key and waiting for the engine to turn on.

She tried several times more, getting increasingly frustrated after each one. “Dammit,” she said, hitting the top of the steering wheel with her hand. She dug her phone out of her purse and dialed the operator. “Hi, I need the number of a tow truck.”

As she waited for her car to be towed, Rory tried to come up with a plan for getting home. She knew there must be a way to get a bus from here to lower Manhattan, but it was eleven o’clock at night. She’d never taken the bus that late at night before, and wasn’t eager to. She tried to think of some friend from work who’d be willing to spend upwards of two hours driving to get from Manhattan to here and back, but she hadn’t been with the New Yorker for very long; no names came to mind.

She scanned through her contact list, not quite sure what she was searching for, when she saw his name. He’d given her his cell number at her birthday party, admitting that he’d finally caved and gotten one. She clicked call.

“Jess? This is Rory. You wouldn’t happen to still be in Manhattan, would you?”

Jess told her that it would probably take him an hour to get there, maybe more since he had to borrow a car from a friend. Luckily, Rory’s computer had been with her in the car, so she  went inside the diner, ordered more coffee, and got to work on one of her articles. Officially, she was a freelance journalist, so her salary depended on her number of accepted pieces. Because of this, writing at night was nothing new to her; whenever she woke up in the middle of the night stressed out about money she would get out her computer and work. It made her feel less like she was standing on the edge of a precipice looking down.

She’d just finished proofreading the article when Jess arrived. “Hey.” His hands were shoved awkwardly in his pockets, as though he weren’t quite sure what to do with them.

“Thanks for coming to get me.” Rory almost stood, but that felt more awkward somehow.

“No problem.”

“Do you want to sit down?”

“Sure.”

Rory closed her laptop and put it into her bag. “I was just finishing up some work.”

Jess nodded and sat down across from her.

“You  should get some coffee. It’s really good here,” she said.

“Okay, I will.”

“Thank you so much for being willing to drive all the way here just to get me.”

“No problem.”

“So, um,” Rory looked at her hands, which were folded on the table. “What are you doing in New York, anyway? Shouldn’t you be back at Truncheon by this point?”

“I’m actually taking a break from Truncheon.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I saved up enough cash to take some time off and see about writing another book. Don’t know how long my money will last in New York, but it seemed like the right place to be.”

Rory’s eyes widened. “Jess, that’s amazing! I can’t believe you’re writing another book!”

“It’s not going to be anything earth shattering, but it keeps me going. Didn’t someone say that books were the only thing that could keep a mind from scratching itself raw?”

Rory thought for a moment. “He says something like that in Cloud Atlas.”

Jess nodded. “Yeah, that’s it.”

The waitress returned and Jess ordered a cup of coffee.

“Could you bring us both a slice of pie, please?” Rory asked.

“Apple or cherry?”

“Apple. We’re celebrating.”

As the waitress left, Jess raised an eyebrow. “Celebrating, huh?”

“Hey, I don’t care what you say, I’m proud of you. Writing a book is a huge deal.”

“It’s fine, we can celebrate. But you’re the one who dragged me all the way out here to pick you up, so you’d better be paying.”

“Of course.”

Rory couldn’t think of anything to say, so she lifted her mug and drank the cold dregs at the bottom, barely managing to avoid a grimace as they slid down her throat. To make small talk with Jess seemed inadequate, but all that came to her mind were quiet, polite questions, the sort that could be asked at a fancy party with people she hated but not at one in the morning in a dingy coffee shop with a boy she had once loved.

“How’s Luke?” she finally asked, even though she already knew the answer.

“Fine.”

“Come on, I thought you’d outgrown your one syllable answers.”

“Hey, don’t mock my answers. They’ve stood by me through some difficult times.”

“Jess.”

“Luke’s been good. He’s been trying to get me to visit more. Keeps making excuses about needing help with things around the diner or getting the rest of his stuff moved to your mom’s house, but I think he just likes having me around. There, how many syllables was that?”

Not enough. “He misses April.”

“Yeah, he talks about her sometimes.”

The pie arrived. The apple in it looked as though it had come from a can, probably with lots of sugar added. Despite years of growing up with Lorelai and her love of processed foods, Rory would have preferred real fruit. She ate it anyway.

“Read any good books lately?” Jess asked.

Rory smiled and started to talk.

*****

“Coffee?” Lane asked.

Lorelai just looked at her.

“Stupid question,” she said, pouring. “So where’s Rory this morning?”

“New York.” The words stung a little bit in Lorelai’s mouth but she tried not to show it.

Lane looked surprised. “But wasn’t last night a Friday Night Dinner?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand. Rory always stays over at your house after Friday Night Dinners. It’s one of the few times I know I’ll see her.”

Lorelai shrugged, not wanting to make this a bigger thing than it had to be. “Last night she said she wanted to go home.”

Lane looked as though she were about to respond, but Caesar called her from the counter. “Lane, Gypsy’s pancakes are ready!”

As Lane was turning to go, Lorelai put a hand on her arm. “I’ll tell Rory you asked about her.”

“Thanks, Lorelai.”

As happened many days, Lorelai had only managed to get a few sips of coffee before somebody sat down across from her. Today it was Miss Patty. “Lorelai, sweetie, where’s Rory?”

“Still in New York.”

“Oh. Why?”

“Just—wanted to be there, I guess.” Lorelai held up her hands in a partial shrug.

Miss Patty’s face turned coy. “Is she still dating that handsome young man she brought to town last year? Robert, wasn’t that his name? I thought she’d bring him to her birthday party this year, but I guess you can’t expect someone to invite their own guest to a a surprise party!”

“It was Roger, actually. And they broke up just a little while after that visit.”

“Why? They seemed so happy together.” From the expression on Miss Patty’s face you would have thought Lorelai had just informed her of Roger’s death rather than a simple breakup.

Lorelai forced a smile. “You know, Patty, Rory never really told me why. It just didn’t work out, I guess.” That was what Rory had said when her grandparents asked the same question. Emily had spent the entire evening glaring at Lorelai, most likely because it was the same excuse she herself had always used. She hadn’t had the words to explain to Emily that she hadn’t wanted to teach Rory this, that her example was not the one she wanted Rory following.

“You mean you didn’t ask her?” Miss Patty asked, looking aghast.

“No, I asked. But Rory’s an adult now. She doesn’t have to tell me every aspect of her life if she doesn’t want to.”

“Surely she must have said something to you. Was it really bad?” Miss Patty lowered her voice for the last part. “I promise not to tell anyone else if you don’t want me to.”

“Patty, I really don’t know.”

“But Sweetie, you tell each other everything!”

Apparently not everything, Lorelai thought sadly. “I have to get to the inn,” she said. She stood and left, looking regretfully back at the last few sips of coffee, which she’d had to leave behind.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Text

Every year when Rory left college, she felt a tinge of regret. She wanted to know that her time in that space had meant more than tape carefully pulled off walls, erasing the evidence of her own existence. When she started on the presidential campaign, she got used to stopping and starting, a new life in every city, so now, temporary existence no longer scares her. She’s gotten in the habit of carrying everything on her back, and now here is a whole town that calls itself her home. It feels too extravagant. She wants to ask, “How am I supposed to carry all of this?” She knows she can’t.

EARLY NOVEMBER

Rory was walking through the town square on her way back from Al’s Pancake World, Lithuanian cuisine in hand, when something brought her up short. Jess was reading in the gazebo. Something about it was so familiar to Rory that for a moment, she forgot to wonder what he was doing here.

“Hey,” she said, approaching him. She stood awkwardly in front of the bench, not sure whether she should sit down and commit herself to a longer conversation.

“Hey.” He put his finger in the book to hold his place.

“I didn’t know you were in Stars Hollow.” Rory shifted her weight to her hip.

“Yeah, it was kind of last minute. See, Liz sent me an invitation to Doula’s birthday way back when it actually was Doula’s birthday, but being Liz, she forgot that I was back in New York and not in Philly. And then, being Liz, she got mad but wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, so I had no idea what I’d done wrong until one of the guys at Truncheon finally remembered to forward my mail.”

“Ah. So this is an apology visit.”

“It’s a get-Liz-off-my-back visit.”

Rory stuck her free hand in her pocket, feeling awkward that she was still standing when he was sitting. “Where are you staying?”

“Luke’s. Since he’s with your mom and all, there’s a perfectly good empty apartment for me to stay in. It’s not much, but beats staying with Liz and Mr. Potato Head.”

Rory laughed at the nickname. “It’s sweet that you and TJ get along so well.”

Jess smirked, but didn’t reply, and without anyone else keeping the conversation going, she was at a loss. She didn’t like this new awkwardness that she now felt around Jess, but she had no idea how to fix it.

Finally, she had to say something. “So… I guess maybe I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, maybe. By the way, I’ve been meaning to argue with you about your most recent article. You left out a few details that really change the slant.”

Rory was about to sit down and engage when she remembered the bag in her hands. “I’ve got take-out.”

“Fine, but you’re just giving me time to further hone my argument. I think you’ll be quite impressed with how well thought-out it is.” Jess quirked an eyebrow.

Rory looked away quickly. “Bye.”

“Later,” Jess said.

Rory left the gazebo, and by the time she turned to take one last look at him, Jess had already resumed reading.

“Rory, Doll!” Babette called, jogging towards Rory as she left the town square.. She was dragging a reluctant kitten behind her on a leash. “How are ya?”

“Oh, I’m fine. Who’s the new cat?”

“Oh, this is Marmalade. Don’t you love that name? Morey thinks it’s just gorgeous.”

Rory nodded, trying not to laugh. “Well, Morey has good taste.”

“So I saw ya talkin’ to Jess. Does it make you miserable, havin’ to see him again all the time?”

“You know, Babette, Jess and I are friends.”

“But Sweetie, he broke your heart! Oh, I remember boys like that! Did you know I once dated a mail carrier? When we broke up, he wouldn’t give me my letters for a year! Totally shut of my contact with my mother. Ooh, it makes me mad just thinkin’ about it!”

“Speaking of mothers, I should really get home.” Rory held up her takeout and gave Babette a smile that she hoped looked apologetic.

“Of course! Don’t let me keep you. Marmalade and I are just going to walk a little bit longer so she can get used to the town. Be careful, you hear!”

“I will.”

Rory made it back home without another incident.

*****

“So, Patty asked me about Roger the other day,” Lorelai said as they walked towards Luke’s. “She wanted to know why you broke up.”

“Why does she care?” Rory asked sharply.

“So she can be the first one to gossip about it at the newsstand?” Lorelai’s tone implied that this was obvious, and in fact, it probably was.

Rory crossed her arms. “God! You know, it’s none of her business. I don’t ask her why none of her marriages have worked out.”

“Well, that’s because she tells you. Loudly, and often, with details that become seared into your memory so that you’re stuck thinking about them, over and over, no matter how hard you try to forget them.” Lorelai put an arm around Rory’s shoulders and squeezed. “Come on, Sweetie. She’s just curious.” They’d made it to the front of Luke’s but neither of them moved to open the door.

“But it’s not her business! I shouldn’t have to tell everyone the complex details of why my relationship didn’t work out!”

“Why are you getting so upset about this? What complex details?”

“Nothing! I just hate that everyone in this stupid town needs to know everything about my life!”

Lorelai held up a hand. “Okay, let’s call a time-out on this one, before someone gets hurt. Now, let’s go into Luke’s before, and I promise that if anyone asks about Roger you can throw silverware at them, sound good?”

Rory sighed loudly. “Can we just go in?”

“Fine with me. Maybe some coffee will put you in a less crabby mood.”

“Not crabby, just annoyed,” Rory said, following her mother into the diner.

They sat down at the table closest to the door. Lane was over with coffee the minute they sat down.

“I’m so glad you’re back!” she said, giving Rory a hug and almost spilling the coffee pot in the process. “We’re playing a gig in Chicago on Friday. I know it’s a bit far, but you could stay in the same hotel as us and pretend we’re famous.”

“We actually… have plans Friday night,” Rory said.

Lorelai looked at Lane sympathetically. “Love to be able to get out of them, but my parents are insisting that with Rory in town, we come to Friday Night Dinner more often. My mother caught me while I was working and I couldn’t come up with an excuse for this weekend quickly enough.”

“Oh.” Lane’s face fell.

“Next time,” Rory promised.

“Chicago sounds nice,” Lorelai said, clearly trying to make Lane feel better. “How long are you staying?”

“All weekend. Zach’s been needing a break from the kids for a while now, and Mama will jump at the chance to take them to church with her. When I asked her to take them, she looked like she actually might cry from joy.”

“You know, I never would have pegged Zach for being a good stay-at-home dad,” Rory said.

Caesar walked behind Lane. She handed the coffee pot to him quickly and continued the conversation. “I wouldn’t have either, when I first met him, but he’s really good with the kids. He’s a lot more patient than I am.”

Rory was about to respond when her phone rang. “I’ll be right back,” she said, taking it outside. “Hello?”

“Did you know about this?” A loud voice demanded. “It’s ridiculous, you’d think it was an invitation to a five year old’s tea party, for all the notice they’ve given us.”

“Paris?” Rory shivered, wishing she’d remembered her coat. She wrapped her free arm around herself.

“Of course it’s me, who else would it be? Didn’t you recognize my voice? You lived with me for most of college, how could you not recognize my voice? And why are you not as freaked out as I am? Journalism’s your thing, not mine. I don’t know why I’m the one freaking out and you’re just asking my name as though you don’t know me.”

“Well, it might be because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You mean you didn’t get one? But you were a much more successful editor than me, how could I get one if you didn’t?”

“Paris, slow down. What did you get that I didn’t?” Across the street, Miss Patty’s dance class was practicing their Turkey dance. The costumes got more elaborate every year.

“An invitation! I said that, didn’t I?”

“An invitation to what?”

“They’re having a reunion, for all the former editors. It’s supposed to be an amazing opportunity to network. I wonder if Doyle’s going to be there. Maybe I shouldn’t go. Do you think I should go? If I don’t go, he’ll know I’m hiding from him, but if I do go we’ll have to make awkward small talk and I just don’t know if I can handle that. What do you think?”

“You should go,” Rory said firmly. “If it’s a networking opportunity, take it. Absolutely.” One of the littlest turkeys was having trouble staying up; the costume was awkwardly large on her.

“But I’m not even going into Journalism, so these connections might not serve me at all in later life. Maybe I should boycott it to protest your not being invited. Why weren’t you invited? I don’t understand how you could have not been invited.”

“When did the invitation show up? It probably went to my box in Manhattan.”

“You mean you aren’t having your mail forwarded? What kind of person doesn’t have their mail forwarded? What if there’s time sensitive information, and you don’t get it because you aren’t having your mail forwarded.”

“Relax, Paris, I’m going to get my mail this weekend. When’s this reunion?”

“Three weeks from Saturday.”

“I’ll try to make it. Now can you try to relax?”

There was a pause. “I’ll try. I should go anyway. I have a midterm tomorrow, though why they call it a midterm when it’s more than halfway through the semester I have no idea. Do you promise you’ll go to the reunion? I don’t want to face Doyle by myself.”

“I said I’ll try.”

“Well, let me know soon, will you? I need to mentally prepare myself.”

“I will. Bye, Paris.”

“Bye.”

Rory hit the ‘end call’ button. The littlest girl had finally tipped over from the weight of her costume. Two others were trying to help her up, but the costumes didn’t bend at the waist, and they couldn’t reach her outstretched hand.

*****

“I’m going for a walk,” Rory called, pulling on her jacket.

Lorelai came bounding down the stairs. “Are you going to be home in time for dinner?”

“Not sure.”

“Well, call me when you’re sure, all right?”

“Okay.” Rory let the door shut gently behind her and hoped Babette and Morey wouldn’t notice her leaving. She always felt guilty for thinking that way, but there was no good way to be alone in her house, and she didn’t want to be accosted the minute she left by well-meaning neighbors. For some reason, having Luke around made the house feel smaller, despite the amount of time he spent at the dinner.

She wasn’t sure where she was going, but eventually Rory’s feet led her to the bridge next to the high school. She hadn’t been here in years, hadn’t even thought about it. After Jess had left, she’d tailored her movements to avoid anything that would hurt. As a result, there were places she’d almost forgotten about. But muscle memory ran deeper, apparently. Rory lowered herself so that she was sitting on the bridge, legs dangling.

After about twenty minutes, she wondered what it would be like if she jumped in. Stupidly cold, of course, but the temptation remained. And almost as soon as the thought had entered her mind…

“I’ll push you in if you want.”

Rory didn’t even look up. This had been their bridge, more his than hers anyway. It would have been stranger not to run into him here. “No thanks.”

“We seem to be running into each other a lot these days.”

“You know what they say about small towns.” It sounded like something he would say, or would have said when they’d known each other better. It surprised Rory to hear it coming out of her own mouth.

“So, there’s something I’ve been wondering for a while now, and I thought I’d just come right out and ask,” Jess said, sitting down next to her.

“What?”

“Why’d you leave the presidential job? I heard you saying  it was too fast paced, but— Do you remember that night you broke your arm, and you told me you wanted to be an overseas correspondent?”

“Of course. Why?”

“Just that when Luke told me you were working the presidential campaign, it sounded exactly what you were supposed to be doing. I don’t blame you for quitting or anything, but—it just seems like exactly the kind of gig you’d love.”

“It was.” Rory crossed her ankles, letting her legs dangle off the bridge. “Until it wasn’t.”

“Huh.”

He wasn’t pushing, but Rory felt the need to justify herself. “Things got… complicated.” Which didn’t explain any of it, really, but could anything? She looked down into the water.

“It’s not a bad place to be, New York,” Jess said. One of his feet was hanging off the bridge, like it was ready to fall from his body into the icy water at any second. “You picked good.”

“How long are you going to be in Stars Hollow?” The bridge was rough on her hands, but she kept them firmly planted.

“Leavin’ tomorrow. Luke wants me to come for Thanksgiving, though. I think I might.”

“Oh.”

“What about you? How long are you here this time?”

Rory hesitated. “Longer. My mom wants me to stay a while. I can submit my articles electronically, so it makes sense.”

 “But you don’t want to.” His tone was questioning.

“It’s perfect timing. My mom needs help with the wedding preparations, and I haven’t spent this much time in town since I left. Taylor wants me to help with the Harvest festival again, and of course my grandparents want to have Friday Night Dinners more often—”

“Why don’t you wanna be here?” Jess asked. He sounded more curious than anything, but for some reason the question stung.

“I never said I didn’t want to be here.” Rory shifted her hands, but one of them caught on the wood. It surprised her for a moment; she didn’t sit on rough bridges in New York. She’d forgotten what it was like.

“Didn’t have to. Don’t lie to me, Gilmore. I know what not wanting to be here looks like.”

“I don’t not want to be here,” Rory said quietly.

“It’s okay, I won’t tell the town crier,” Jess said. “Listen, it’s nice that you want to help your mom, but you don’t have to feel bad for wishing you were somewhere else.”

Rory didn’t say anything.

“I really didn’t mean to upset you. Do you want me to go?”

“No, you can stay.”

After a few minutes of silence, Jess pulled a book out of his back pocket and cracked it open.

“What are you reading?” Rory couldn’t help but ask.

“Breakfast of Champions.”

“Ah, the illustrious Vonnegut.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, you can’t read it here, mister. If you’re going to stick around, you have to keep me company.” Rory tried to strike a light, joking tone, but something in Jess’ face told her she’d failed.

“Well, I can’t keep you company if you don’t want to talk about anything,” Jess said. “C’mon, Gilmore, you’ve been freezing me out since we first ran into each other. I don’t know any more about your life than I did that day at Truncheon.”

Rory’s face grew hot. “Is there any reason you should?”

Jess looked down. “I don’t know.”

They were both silent for a while.

“I was dating a guy on the campaign,” Rory finally said. There was no way to hide the shaking of her voice. “Another reporter.”

“Oh?”

“We had kind of a—messy breakup. I wouldn’t have left just because of that—or I don’t think I would have—but then I got the job offer. It was easier.” Rory looked down into the water. “My mom doesn’t even know that was part of it. You happy?”

There was a pause, then, “Do you want to get a pizza? I’m starving.”

Rory almost snapped at him for responding this way to such a big confession, but then she looked at his face and realized that this was an apology.

“Yeah,” she said, standing. “Let’s get a pizza.

*****

 “So, I hear you’ve been hanging out with Jess again,” Lorelai said. She grabbed her pop tarts from the toaster, wincing when her hands made contact. “Ow! Hot.” She dropped them on the table and sat down.

 “Yeah, I guess. He’s around.”

“According to Babette, you’ve been seen together on multiple occasions. That sounds like more than just ‘he’s around.’”

“Babette should mind her own business,” Rory muttered.

“Should I be worried? I mean, by the end of January you’ll be sort-of cousins. I don’t know how the state of Connecticut would feel about that sort of thing.”

Rory grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and sat down across from her mother. “Well, since I have no plans of marrying Jess I don’t think the state of Connecticut would have any opinion whatsoever on the matter. Hey, did you take the last pop-tart? I told you I wanted one.”

“But there was only one left, and I’m getting married soon! Don’t I deserve to pamper myself?”

“Three months of pampering? I don’t think so.”

“But Rory, you’ve forgotten who I’m marrying!” Lorelai said, grabbing Rory’s arm in mock terror. “He’s going to make me eat carrots, and he won’t let me pick the lettuce off my burgers, and—”

“My mother, the drama queen of eastern Connecticut.”

Lorelai looked at her expectantly.

“Fine, you can have it.”

“You’re my favorite daughter!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I bet you say that to all your daughters.”

“Back to Jess. What’s the scoop there?” Lorelai took a large bite of her pop-tart.

Rory struggled not to snap at her mother’s gossipy tone. “No scoop. Just two old friends hanging out.”

“Hanging out, or hanging out?” Lorelai asked, with exaggerated air quotes on the second one.

“Mom! Can you let it go, please? I told you, we’re just friends.”

Lorelai held up her hands. “I’m sorry! I’m just surprised that you’re letting Jess back in your life after the way he hurt you.”

“It was more than six years ago! And he’s changed a lot since then.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, if you’re sure he’s okay.”

“I am.” Rory cast about for another topic. “Is Luke at the Diner already? I thought he was taking the morning off.”

“Rory.”

“What? Am I not allowed to ask about Luke now?”

“I want to talk about this. Look, it’s fine that you’re spending time with Jess. I just want you to be careful,” Lorelai said gently. “I don’t like to see you getting hurt, okay kid?”

“I’m not 18 anymore.” Rory got up so abruptly that she almost knocked over her chair. She turned around and yanked the coffee pot out of the machine. It was empty. “You know, you could have saved some for me.”

“Rory, I know you can take care of yourself, but do you remember what happened last time you got back together with an ex? It’s much messier than you think it will be.”

Rory set down the coffeepot and crossed her arms. “Care to tell me what you’re alluding to?”

Lorelai held up her hands. “Hey, if you don’t want to talk about Dean, we don’t have to talk about Dean. I’m just saying, I just want you to be careful.”

“Because I’m obviously going to get back together with any one of my exes that comes within a ten foot radius. Like mother like daughter, right?” Rory spat back.

“Rory!”

“Well, it’s true! And I’m sick of you reminding me of every stupid mistake I ever made. I messed up with Dean, okay?”

“Where is this coming from?” Lorelai asked. “Rory, what’s going on with you?”

“And while we’re talking about Dean, did it ever occur to you that maybe I never would have gotten back together with him if everyone in this stupid town hadn’t insisted that we were so perfect together?” Rory crossed her arms even tighter so that Lorelai wouldn’t see how badly she was shaking.

“Hey, I don’t remember anyone telling you that he should cheat on his wife!” Lorelai snapped back.

“From day one, all anyone can talk to me about is how perfect of a boyfriend he is, how I’m so lucky to have him. Even when he was yelling at me and accusing me of cheating on him, it was always my fault, because of course Perfect Dean could do no wrong.”

“Well, sweetie, you did cheat on him. Sookie’s wedding?”

“He was a jerk before that, and you know it!” Rory gave up on holding back the tears. “Why was it always my fault? You should have told me, the first time he broke up with me. You should have told me that what he did wasn’t okay. But oh no, instead I get a lecture about how I shouldn’t be afraid of my feelings. Where was the other speech, the one about how just because someone loves you doesn’t mean you have to love them back?”

“Oh, sweetie.” Lorelai stood up and tried to put her arms around Rory, but was shaken off. “I didn’t want you to be like me.”

“So you pushed me to stay with a guy who would yell at me for talking to someone else? So you let me think it was okay for someone to dump me just because I wasn’t ready to say I loved him? God, you were as bad as Grandma! I meet a guy you like, and suddenly you get a say in the relationship. I bet if it was Dean I was friends with again, you’d be thrilled!”

“Rory…”

“Don’t ‘Rory’ me. I’ll see you tomorrow for Friday Night Dinner. Be sure to invite dear old Dean, will you?” She stalked towards her room and started throwing things haphazardly into her duffel bag.

Lorelai watched from the doorway. “Are you seriously leaving?”

“Well, I don’t see why I should stick around here if I’m just going to be lectured about things I didn’t do! Besides, I have to pick up my mail.” She tossed a few books in her bag for good measure, more out of a desire to hear the sound they made hitting the bag than any wish to read them. Most of her books were still at her apartment anyway.

“Fine.” Lorelai crossed her arms. “I guess we’ll see each other tomorrow, then.”

Rory stopped packing to mirror her posture. “I guess so.”

“Well, drive safe.” Lorelai turned and walked up the stairs, depriving Rory of the satisfaction of being the one to storm off.

Once outside the house, she texted Shana. Staying in NY tonight. Can I use appt.?

She got a text back at once. No problemo staying w/ BF anyway.

That night, Rory couldn’t sleep. Her bed felt claustrophobic, as though all the warm air in the apartment was conspiring to weigh heavily on her. She threw off her blankets, but despite the season, she couldn’t cool herself down. Finally, she gave up and went to her desk, which was by far the nicest thing she owned.

Rory tried writing a few times, but the words wouldn’t come out the way she wanted them to. She had to do something, so she clicked the New Yorker bookmark on her computer and started going through the archives, hoping for something to inspire her.

She was looking through 1940 when a Kenneth Fearing poem caught her eye:

Love 20 cents The First Quarter Mile

All right. I may have lied to you and about you, and made a

few pronouncements a bit too sweeping, perhaps, and

possibly forgotten to tag the bases here or there,

And damned your extravagance, and maligned your tastes,

and libeled your relatives, and slandered a few of your

friends, O. K. ,

Nevertheless, come back.

The poem went on, and Rory found herself more engaged in the words than she’d gotten since before Roger. It was the fourth stanza that made her realize what was happening.

Because tonight you are in my hair and eyes,

And every street light that our taxi passes shows me you

again, still you,

And because tonight all other nights are black, all other hours

are cold and far away, and now, this minute, the stars are

very near and bright.

There was one more stanza, but afterwards, Rory kept going back to that fourth one.  Again, still you. Afterwards she sat in the dark for a very long time. Finally, she printed the poem, and put it in the folder that Roger had returned to her after making the book. As she did so, she thought that once, just once, it’d be nice if her mother could be wrong about something.

 

Chapter Text

 

For 18 years, you were a person who fit into this space, and the four years after that you moved in and out of different skins, trying to fit everywhere and succeeding nowhere. It took years to understand the allure of running away and never looking back. If you had known this sooner, maybe you could have forgiven Jess for needing to be free of you so badly.

*****

After they’d left Richard and Emily’s house that Friday night, Lorelai turned to Rory with her arms crossed in a defensive posture. “Anything you want to say to me?”

They’d managed to fake it enough that Emily didn’t notice they were fighting, but Rory knew they were far from okay. “Mom, I’m sorry,” she said.

“Damn right you’d better be sorry. Those things you said about me? Not cool.”

Rory shivered a little bit, hoping they could work this out before she froze to death. “Like you’ve never said anything hurtful to your mother.”

“Hey, don’t compare me to her.”

“I said I was sorry!”

Lorelai sighed. “Look, I am sorry you felt like I pushed you about Dean. But yelling at me about it more than five years after the fact isn’t helping anyone.” Her apology was reluctant at best, but Rory wasn’t in the mood to argue again.

“And for the last time, I’m sorry I said those things about you.”

“So… truce?”

Rory nodded. “Got any plans tonight? Or is that offer of The Godfather still good?”

Lorelai put her arm around Rory’s shoulders and squeezed. “Sure. Let’s watch The Godfather.”

*****

The next morning, Rory was tearing through her room frantically, pulling things off shelves and out of drawers. “Damn it, damn it, damn it!” she yelled.

“You want coffee?” Lorelai asked, leaning her head into Rory’s room.

“I don’t have time for coffee, I have to write this article!” She dug through her purse, practically tearing the book she had been carrying the night before.

“Let me guess, it’s a review of the performance art piece you’re currently creating in this room.” Lorelai walked all the way into the room to observe the damage.

“Mom!”

“Well, you’re going to have to help me connect the dots here. What are you looking for, and since when has coffee ever inhibited your ability to write articles?”

“They’re not here!” Rory groaned.

“What aren’t?”

“My notes! The notes I took when I was researching the article. Without them I’ll have to start all over.” She sat down on her bed and put her head into her hands, then shot back up and continued searching.

“Sweetie, it’s okay. You can get them later.”

“But I need them now!”

Lorelai shrugged. “Can you remember the gist of it?”

“The gist of it isn’t good enough for a professional article! I’d be breaching my journalistic integrity if I wrote something without being sure what the facts are!” Rory threw open her wardrobe angrily, as though it were purposely keeping her notes from her.

“And you’re sure they aren’t in your bag?”

“I checked four times!”

“Well, then you’ll just have to go back to New York for them.”

Rory’s throat felt tight. To go back to New York would take hours of time out of her writing, and since her last two articles had been rejected, she needed to catch back up. “Damn it!” she said, kicking her door.

“Don’t take it out on the door!” Lorelai said, patting it. “He’s already having a rough day. He tried to make a move on the bookshelf this morning, but she still isn’t speaking to him after that incident with the dresser.”

“I don’t have time to drive to New York!”

Lorelai held up her hands. “Well, you’ll just have to figure something out, but in the meantime, try not to destroy my house, okay?” She left the room.

“Fine!” Rory shut her door as hard as she could without slamming it and dug her phone out of her bag. She tried not to think as she made the call.

“Hello?”

“Jess?” Rory asked hesitantly. She wondered if asking for yet another favor was going too far, but it would take her all afternoon to get to and from New York. “Would you be willing to get a few things from my apartment and bring them over the next time you’re in Stars Hollow? Just one thing actually, my blue notebook. It should be on my desk. I know it’s a big favor, but if you were already going to be in Stars Hollow—”

“When do you need it by?” Jess asked.

“Just whenever you can get it to me. Really, you don’t need to go out of your way.” She sat down on her bed with her legs folded to her side.

“Rory, just tell me when you need it by.”

Rory sighed. “Next weekend.  I need it by next weekend, or this article won’t be done in time.”

There was a pause.

“I’ll take the bus to Stars Hollow on Wednesday. I can write on the bus..”

“Thank you so much. I promise I’ll find a way to make it up to you.”

“Oh yeah?”

 Rory could hear the smirk in his voice, so she quickly said, “Anything but Hemingway.”

“I guess I’ll just have to think of something else.”

“I guess you will,” Rory said.

“So I’ve got some time this afternoon. Should I stop by and get it today?”

“That’d be great! I’ll let Shana know you’re coming, she’ll let you in.”

“Shana’s your friend you’re subletting to?”

“Unofficially.”

“Okay. Can you text me the address?”

Rory laughed. “Wow, Jess Mariano, finally in the digital age.”

“It’s just texting, it’s not like I have one of those iphones or anything.”

“Not yet, anyway,” Rory teased.

Neither of them knew what to say after that, but neither was willing to hang up, so they stayed on the line, listening to each other’s breathing, for almost a full minute before they said their goodbyes.

*****

Shana lets him into the apartment with instructions to stick around until she gets back with coffee. “I won’t be long, I promise!” she’s called over her shoulder before he even has a chance to reply.

The notes are exactly where Rory said they would be (of course they are, he’d be an idiot to expect otherwise), so once he’s retrieved them he isn’t quite sure what to do with himself. Until he notices the book shelf. It’s tiny, like the apartment, and a simple glance at it tells him it can’t be all of her books. He looks around the apartment, wondering where else they could be, and in the end walks over to the desk and opens a drawer at random. Sure enough, it’s full of books, and these ones look much more interesting than the ones on the shelf. Those were the books for show; these were books that Rory really loved.

He pulls books out at random, reading the back covers and wondering what he’s looking for. Maybe he shouldn’t be doing this, but his moral compass has never pointed quite where it’s supposed to, and something inside of him is urging him to keep looking. There has to be something, something in here that can give him a clue to the girl he used to know better than anyone.

The book catches his eye because looks like it’s not supposed to. He slides it out of the drawer (“You stole my book?” “Just wanted to put some notes in the margins”) and opens it to a page at random.

 It’s poetry, and he almost closes the book again because he’s never been able to get into poems the way he can a story, when he sees his name in the margin, written and then erased so that it’s barely visible, only a J and a smudge. And before he knows it, he’s slid the book inside his jacket alongside Rory’s notes, and Shana is practically falling into the room, apologizing profusely for taking so long.

*****

“Is everything okay between you and Lorelai?” Lane asked, putting tea bags into hot water for herself and Rory. When they were younger they’d always had tea at the Kim house, and it was a tradition that they’d continued into adulthood, although now it was far more likely to be Lipton than anything else.

Rory winced. “Did she say something?”

“Not exactly, but when she came into Luke’s Friday morning alone in a bad mood, I could tell. She wouldn’t say anything about it, but it was pretty obvious that you’d had a fight. Do you want to talk about it?” Lane passed Rory her cup and sat across the counter from her.

Rory sighed. “She was hinting that the reason I’ve been hanging out with Jess again is because I’m going to get back together with him. She thinks I’m still in love with him”

“Are you still in love with him?” Lane asked, staring longingly at her drums. “Sorry, I’m distracted. The minute I get the boys down for a nap all I can think about is how long it will be before I can make noise again. They’ll be done taking naps in a few months. I hope.”

“No, I’m not,” Rory said in response to Lane’s original question, but she wasn’t as confident as she sounded.

Lane looked at her closely. “Are you sure? Because it’s okay if you are. Lots of people fall back in love after being separated for a long time.”

“You  mean like Mom and Dad?” Rory asked pointedly. “Not quite sure theirs are the footsteps I should be following.”

Lane drummed on  her legs with her fingers. “What about Lorelai and Luke? They broke up and got back together twice. And now they’re getting married.”

“I’m not my mother, Lane. And what about Dean? I got back together with him and look what happened there.” Rory took a large sip of her coffee, trying to ignore the fact that these were Lorelai’s arguing points, not her own.

“The first time you got back together it was fine. And Jess isn’t married, so at least that wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Doesn’t matter. The point is, that’s not who I want to be. I am not that girl who drops everything to get back together with boys that treated me like I wasn’t important.”

Lane nodded. “But you know, if you do get back together with him, it won’t make you Lorelai. I mean, I love Lorelai, but just because you’re similar doesn’t mean you’ll make her mistakes. It’s not like you got pregnant at sixteen.”

“No,” Rory said quietly. “I didn’t get pregnant at sixteen.” After a moment’s pause, she said, “I’d finally stopped feeling like I was going backward.”

“And Jess makes you feel like you’re going backward?” Lane asked.

Rory didn’t respond.

“It would be okay, if he did,” Lane said gently. “It wouldn’t mean you don’t like where you are now. I mean, I don’t know what I’d do if I saw Dave again.”

Rory considered saying that it was different with Jess, but she wasn’t sure how, and she knew the resentful feeling that came up when Lane compared him to Dave wasn’t justified.

“He’s always going to be in my life,” Rory said. “Now that Mom and Luke are getting married.” She didn’t mention the poem, the niggling feeling she had that he might be in her life regardless of Luke and Lorelai’s status as a couple. She didn’t mention the other thing, the final proof that she wasn’t as brave as Lorelai after all. “So, how was Chicago?”

“Incredible. Zach tried to crowd surf, and enough people actually put their arms up to break his fall this time. Granted, he ended up on the ground eventually, but it was a slow collapse. Slow collapse. That’d be a great song name. If it isn’t one already. Maybe I should check online.”

Rory laughed. “So the concussion in Hartford wasn’t enough to make him stop trying?”

“If there’s a crowd, Zach will try to surf it. And having a few days away from the boys was incredible. I haven’t felt that free since before Zach and I were married.”

“Do you ever regret—” Rory paused, trying to figure out how she wanted to put it. “Do you ever wish you’d waited longer to have kids?”

Lane considered this. “It would have been nice to be older when it happened, but now that they’re here I wouldn’t trade them for anything. We don’t want any more, though. The plan is that since we had kids so young, by the time they move out we’ll still have a few really good years of music in us. I mean, by the time they’re eighteen, I’ll only be forty. So as long as I don’t choke on my own vomit at 32 like Bohnam, the band should be able to keep going.”

“Neil Peart’s almost sixty and he’s still rocking,” Rory offered.

“If I managed to find a way to drum when I was seventeen and Mama wouldn’t even let me listen to Jars of Clay, I can drum with twin toddlers.”

“You go, girl.”

“I’m lucky, I really am.”

Rory looked out the window and drank her tea, wishing she could feel as grateful for her life as Lane seemed to be.

When she got home, Lorelai was waiting for her at the table. “I made coffee,” she said.

“I had tea at Lane’s.”

“Drink it anyway. We need to talk.” Lorelai was being unnaturally serious, so Rory sat down across from her and reached for the coffee.

“About what?”

“Well, you haven’t been yourself lately. And what with the fight we had the other day, it occurred to me that there might be other things you need to get off your chest.”

“There aren’t.”

“You sure? Because up until this week, I would have said that you weren’t the type to hold a grudge about something that happened years ago, but clearly I would have been wrong. So if there’s any other way I’ve wounded you in the past two and a half decades, I’d like to know, all right?” Her tone was harsh; it made Rory want to react.

She was about to snap at her mother, but the words stuck in her throat. Finally, she said quietly, “I don’t know.”

“Not gonna yell at me for anything else? Here, I’ll name some things I’ve done, see if I can give you some inspiration. Let’s see… there was that Barbie I didn’t get you when you were four. What’s the statue of limitations on that one?”

“Statute,” Rory corrected automatically.

“Whatever. Want something more recent? I stole your favorite sweater last week, maybe you can yell at me for that.” Lorelai wasn’t drinking her coffee; it was this that made Rory realize how angry her mother really  must be. And somehow, that made Rory angry too.

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe I’m not acting like myself because I’ve changed?” she snapped. “Why does everybody in this stupid town act like I was supposed to stay the same for my entire life?”

“There’s a difference between growing up and acting like an entirely different person. God, Rory, it’s like I don’t even know you!”

“Well maybe you don’t! You were always more interested in molding me to your own image, weren’t you?” Tears came to Rory’s eyes. “Admit it, we haven’t been real with each other since I took time off Yale. You never understood why I had to do that, did you?”

“Oh, Rory,” Lorelai said.

“It was the right choice! I’m glad I went back, and I’m glad I’m where I am now, but I had to make that mistake, okay? How come you always get to say that your mistakes are okay because they got you where you are, but my mistakes mean that I failed? Do you know how scared I always am of failing?” The tears were flowing hard now, but she didn’t even take a breath before saying, “Why didn’t you ever forgive me for leaving? I’ve spent years feeling like I can’t show any weakness, any sign of failure, because it would mean disappointing you like I did then.”

Lorelai crossed her arms. “What makes you think I didn’t forgive you?”

“We never talk about it! We’ve been avoiding mentioning it almost since it happened. You know every detail of my time at Yale, but you don’t know anything about what my life was like with Grandpa and Grandma! It’s like you’re scared that if you ask, you’ll find out I was happy there, and then all of your illusions of them as terrible monsters will be shattered.”

Lorelai rose to get another cup of coffee, and Rory realize that the reason she wasn’t drinking was that her cup had been empty all along. Lorelai stood for a moment with her hands wrapped around the mug, looking lost. Finally, she said, “You’re right.”

“About which part?”

“We should have talked more, when it happened. I was so preoccupied with everything happening with Luke and April…” Lorelai sat back down at the table.

“Then you should have made time,” Rory said. “We acted like everything was okay, but it wasn’t! And then, after all that, we just kept acting! I was so angry when you married Dad, and I didn’t even talk to you about it. We used to be able to fight things out if that was what we needed, but we don’t anymore! We just ignore the problem and hope it goes away!”

Something in Lorelai’s face shifted, and suddenly she looked like she did at the Dragonfly when she had to lay down the law. She set down her coffee and spoke. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” she said. “For as long as you’re staying here, we’ll do Thursday night dinners together. No matter what else is going on in our lives, we’ll plan for that.”

“How will that help?”

Lorelai held up a hand. “I’m not finished. We will go to these Thursday night dinners outside of Stars Hollow so that we’re not surrounded by people who have known you your whole life and me since I was sixteen. And, then we’ll talk.”

“And who exactly will be paying for all these dinners out? I doubt you’re going to be able to talk anyone outside of town into giving us discounts for eating out so much.”

Lorelai thought for a moment. “We could get food from Luke’s and take it on a picnic out of town?”

“You hate bugs.”

“I do not! They just don’t like me. They’re out for my blood, I swear!”

“Fine, picnics out of town once a week.” Rory rolled her eyes.

Lorelai’s tone turned serious again. “If we want this to work, we’re going to have to really talk. I want to know that things are bugging you before it’s too late for me to do anything. Maybe if we’d done this sooner, I wouldn’t have pushed you towards Dean as much.”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not. This whole respecting each other’s choices and understanding each other thing needs to be a two way street, and if I’m not holding up my end of that, we need to do something.”

“Okay,” Rory nodded, swallowing over a lump in her throat.

*****

On Wednesday she went to meet Jess at the bridge at the time he’d told her. She’d brought a notepad in case she was early and needed something to do, but when she arrived Jess was already there, legs dangling off the side of the bridge.

“Hey,” he said, closing his book and sliding it into his back pocket. “Got your notes.” Jess gestured to the notebook sitting next to him.

“Thanks,” Rory said, picking up the notebook and sitting in its place. “What book is it today?”

“Raise High the Roofbeam Carpenters and Seymour: an Introduction.”

“I could never get into Seymour: an Introduction,” Rory admitted.

Jess gave her a half-grin. “That’s because you like stories that feel like they’re going somewhere. And alone, maybe it’s not that great, but without it Raise High the Roofbeam Carpenters wouldn’t be about anything. You need one to have the other. Like Franny and Zooey. Without Zooey, the book’s just about some chick who has inane conversations with her boyfriend and refuses to eat, but the second half gives the texture that we need for Franny to make sense.”

“Then why not put Seymour: an Introduction first?” Rory asked. “Then you’d have everything you needed to know for the second part.”

Jess considered this for a moment, then shook his head. “That makes it too easy. It’s better not to understand until the end.”

Rory laughed.

“What? I’m serious.”

“I know. It just reminded me of how things were with us—before.”

Jess laughed too. “Remember that time when we were making out in the back of my car and then you stopped the whole thing to explain to me the merits of Herman Melville?”

“We were reading Bartleby in school.”

“Right.”

“I’d forgotten about that.” Rory crossed her legs under her. “Sometimes, when I look back on everything, it doesn’t even seem real,” she confessed. “It’s like my life is something I read in a book a long time ago, and I can’t remember all of the important details.”

“Huh.”

“I think I wanted to forget, for a while. With Logan. I didn’t have to hold onto all of it.” She hugged her legs to her chest. “I can’t help remembering, here.”

“This town sure does like to cling onto things,” Jess said. “Yesterday Taylor tried to rope me into volunteering at that harvest festival thing. Said I ‘owed it to the town’ to give something back, after the way they helped me get my life together.’ As if anyone but you and Luke ever helped me with a goddamn thing.”

“I think I gave you too hard a time about not wanting to be here,” Rory said.

“Oh yeah?”

“It wasn’t until I left home that I realized how small it is here. Especially now that I’m in a city like New York. Things change there. Every day is different.”

“You feel stifled here.”

“I feel like everyone expects me to stay the same forever. I don’t know, maybe it started before college. Maybe it was Chilton. Everyone I knew at Chilton ended up all over the place, and everyone from Stars Hollow High stayed here, married people they knew, and have had the same job for their whole adult lives. It’s like a dollhouse. I can’t picture any of them ever moving away, or changing jobs, or anything.”

“I didn’t know you still saw anyone from Chilton besides Paris.”

“Madeleine and Louise added me on Facebook the minute I joined. Louise is in Hollywood doing costume design for period films. I don’t know what Madeleine does, but wherever she is she can’t be far from Louise.” Rory expected Jess to make a crack about her joining a site like Facebook, but he didn’t.

“Huh.”

“You’re the only person I know from Stars Hollow who escaped the dollhouse,” Rory continued. “I love my mom and Lane, but they fit in here. I don’t. Lane’s band is playing all over the East Coast, but she still married someone local and works at Luke’s. She’s figured out  how to have it all.”

“You think it’d have been easier to grow up in your grandparents’ world?”

It was a real question, and Rory could tell from the way Jess was looking at her that she wouldn’t be let off the hook. After a moment’s thought, she said, “No.  God, no. If Stars Hollow is a dollhouse, my grandparents’ world is a tea party.  And I’m not strong like Mom. If I’d grown up with my grandparents, I wouldn’t have been able to leave. If it hadn’t been for you, I think I would have stayed in their world forever after I quit Yale.”

“You’re stronger than you think.”

Rory looked at him, almost angrily. “I always do whatever people tell me to.”

“You went out with me. I think it’s safe to say nobody in town wanted you to do that.”

“No, they didn’t.”

“By the way, I should probably give this back,” he said, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a book. “I didn’t know what it was when I took it.”

“It’s not important,” Rory said, taking it from him. It took her several moments to realize what it was, and all of a sudden she realized it was important, after all.

“I noticed they’re all love poems,” he said.

“Yeah,” Rory replied cautiously.

“There was one that confused me though. The Margaret Atwood one.”

“You fit into me like a hook into an eye. A fish hook. An open eye,” Rory recited.

“Yeah, that. It just—doesn’t really seem to fit.”

“They’re all love poems,” Rory said, looking away. “I never said they were all nice.”

Jess shrugged. “It just didn’t seem like you. I’ve never thought of you as a bitter person.”

“I’m not bitter,” Rory said quickly.

Jess just smiled. Rory wasn’t sure what it meant.

“So what’s this?” he asked, indicating the notepad she’d brought. “Working on an article?”

“Pro-con list.”

Jess laughed. “You still making those crazy things?”

Rory folded her arms. “Hey, don’t make fun of my system.”

Jess picked up the notepad. “‘Should I go to the Yale Daily News Reunion?’”he read aloud.

“I told Paris I’d try to go.”

“But you’re worried you’ll run into some guy named Roger.”

Rory stared at him. “How did you—”

“It’s on the con list, Gilmore. Who’s Roger?”

“My ex. The one I mentioned from the campaign.”

“Ah. He was on the Yale Daily News?”

“No, but he still might wrangle an invite. It’s an amazing networking opportunity. I have a feeling a lot of other journalists will end up on the guest list.”

“Huh.” Jess looked at her list again. “You also wrote on the con list that you don’t have anyone to bring as your plus one. Worried people will think you couldn’t get a date to the party?”

Rory snatched the list away from him. “No, not worried, just thinking that I don’t want to spend hours in the car alone to go to a party full of people I don’t know.”

“Is it at Yale?”

“Yeah.”

Jess looked at her a few times, then said quickly, “Do you want me to go with you?”

“What?”

“Relax, I’m not asking you as a date. I just thought you’d like having someone familiar around.”

“I would.”

“Perfect. Just send me the date and time, and I’ll be there. Maybe I’ll even take advantage of the great opportunity to network,” he joked.

Rory laughed, but it sounded forced.

“By the way, I wanted to give you this, too. For your book.” Jess looked down sheepishly. “It’s by this Rumi guy? He was some sort of mystic, in like the 13th century. It reminded me of you.”

“Yeah, I’ve read some of his writing.”

“Here. I think you’ll like this one.”

“Thanks,” Rory said quietly as Jess handed her the poem, which had crease lines on it from being in his back pocket.  She swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry.

“Anyway, I should go. Luke wanted me to spend some time with him, since I’m here.”

“Bye,” Rory said. She watched him walk away, and it was only after he’d left that she was brave enough to look down at the paper she held in her hand. The poem was almost as short as the Atwood one.

Since we have seen each other, a game goes on.

Secretly I move, and you respond.

You are winning. You think it’s funny.

 

But look up from the board now.

Look how I have brought furniture into this invisible place,

so we can live here.

 

 

 

Chapter Text

She’s come to terms with the fact
that she’s the worst sort of cliche, but
if she’s careful maybe she won’t spend
her Saturdays kissing in the rain
and thinking that rain’s not enough,
that she craves thunder and lightning
and hail, everything that’s too much and
not enough.

*****

Thursday night dinner started with putting a blanket in the back of the car, a picnic basket full of food from Luke’s, and a vague mental image of a park that Lorelai may or may not have taken Rory to when she was a baby. Half an hour later, they gave up, pulled off on the side of a road and set out the blanket in a field that hopefully didn’t belong to anyone who would mind if they ate there. The went as far from the freeway as they dared too.

“So,” Lorelai said once they were all set up. “Where’s your list?”

Rory sat down on the blanket, which was almost as scratchy as the grass. “What list?”

“Are you telling me that you didn’t sit down to write a list of talking points the minute we decided to do this thing?

Rory considered denying it, in an absent sort of way, but the whole point of these dinners was to be honest. Why was it so hard to tell her mother the truth? “It’s in my bag,” she admitted.

Lorelai unwrapped her burger and took a large sip of coffee from her to-go cup. “Okay, lay it on me. What’s first?”

Rory made no move to get the list from her bag. Instead, she asked quietly, “Um, Mom?”

“What?”

The cars on the road were deafening, or maybe it just felt that way because the sound reminded her of rushing blood, of accidents resulting in broken arms. “Would it really be that bad if Jess and I did get back together?” It was cold tonight. Thanksgiving had come and gone, and now the winter felt real to Rory.

Lorelai thought for a moment, then said, “I guess that depends on what you’re willing to risk. But then, that’s true in any relationship. You’d just be going in with more evidence than you normally get.” She bit into her burger, then asked, “Does this mean you’re planning to get back together, or is it just idle curiosity?

Rory looked back to the highway, to the cars. “I don’t know.” She was numb from the cold, or maybe from the memory of that one long ago night when she’d waited in the hospital, and Jess had left without saying goodbye.

*****

Rory opened the front door just as Jess was poised to knock. They laughed awkwardly. Rory was acutely aware of the soft blue fabric of her dress against her skin. Jess, in black jeans and a blazer, was more dressed up than she’d ever seen him. She put her hands in her coat pockets.

“Do you want to drive?” Jess asked. He was talking faster than usual. “I don’t have a car, but if you don’t feel like driving—”

“I can drive,” Rory said quickly.

“All right.”

Rory left the house, sliding the door gently shut. They didn’t speak as they walked towards her car. As Rory put her key in the ignition, she considered mentioning the poem, but dismissed the thought. This was one piece of literature that she didn’t know how to discuss with him.

“How’s, um. How’s the writing going?” She pulled out the driveway, wondering if it would be easier when they’d left the town that had kept them under such tight lock and key from the moment she’d broken the unofficial rules.

“Slow. See, the first book’s easier because there’s no expectations. If a thousand people read my first book, which might be a bit optimistic considering how few copies were printed, those thousand people still have certain expectations. It makes it hard to get anything on the page. I can never figure out if I’m writing for me or someone else.”

A strand of hair felt out of Rory’s updo and onto her face. She tried to blow it back into place, unwilling to take a hand off the wheel, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Here.” Jess leaned over across the cup holder and tucked the strand behind her ear. Rory shivered, quickly suppressing the feelings that had only increased after reading the Rumi poem.

“Thanks.”

“How do you know I did it for your benefit, Gilmore?” Jess asked with a smirk. “Maybe I’m just worried about how your appearance will reflect on me. For all you know, I’ll make some incredibly important contacts tonight. I can’t have you messing that up for me.”

“Oh, so it was a purely selfish act of kindness.” Rory laughed.

“That’s right.”

“Thanks for clearing that up.”

“No problem.”

He was too close. Rory could barely carry on a conversation without getting distracted by his voice or his gestures. Luckily, they reached the campus reasonably quickly. Despite the shaky feeling that had taken up residence in her stomach, Rory enjoyed the opportunity to show him a few of her favorite places on campus. They couldn’t enter most of the buildings without student IDs, but she showed him the buildings’ exteriors and some of her favorite outdoor places before they found the building in which the reunion was being held.

The minute they entered the crowded room, Jess stiffened, and Rory remembered how much he hated crowds. Her mind flashed to the party with lanes band, the moment she had realized that things were falling apart. In the present, Jess turned to her and said, “It’s hot in here. Do you want a drink? I can get drinks. If you want.”

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

“Okay.” Jess looked relieved. “Okay, so I’ll go get drinks. Anything in particular you want?”

“Nothing too strong.”

“Trying not to get too plastered around potential business contacts?”

“Pretty much.”

“Fair enough. I’ll be right back.”

They’d just barely entered the room, so Rory stayed in place near the door. She had developed coping mechanisms for being in groups, but they took energy to draw up. She looked around, trying to familiarize herself with the space and the people in it. The room was small and square, with tables on the sides holding hors d’oeuvres. She had just made up her mind to look for Paris when—

“Ace!” Logan said, coming across the room towards her. Rory wondered if she should be more surprised than she was, but as soon as it happened, it seemed so obvious that he’d be here, so obvious he’d notice her. So obvious, and she hadn’t even thought to put in on the con list.

“I thought you were in California!”

Logan slapped her shoulder gently. “Frequent Flier miles, Ace! I came back for the reunion.”

“But I don’t understand. You weren’t a Yale Daily News Editor,” Rory said helplessly.

“No, but my father owns several of the largest newspapers in the country, and the Daily News felt it would be remiss not to include me.”

Rory felt a surge of annoyance at the thought of at least ten other non-editors who would have benefitted from this party but didn’t have Logan’s connections. Jess returned before she had to speak.

“Here,” he said, handing it to her. Rory’s fingers tingled where their hands touched, but she ignored it.

“This your date?” Logan asked. “Hey, wait a minute, I know you! Jake, right?

“Jess,” Rory said tersely. “His name is Jess.”

“Jess, right. How you doing, Jess?” Logan asked, extending his hand. Jess ignored it.

“How long ‘til we can bail?” he asked quietly, turning his body to exclude Logan from the conversation.

“Got somewhere to be?” Logan asked sharply.

“Nope. Just don’t like this kind of party.”

“What, people here too successful for you? Or are you just too pretentious to breath the same air as people who own more than one suit, Holden Caulfield?”

Jess widened his eyes in mock surprise. “Wow, a literary reference. Rory, you didn’t tell me he could read!”

Rory took Jess’ arm firmly. “I see Doyle over there. Let’s go say hi.”

“Gladly,” Jess said, turning back to give Logan one last glare.

They worked their way through the crowd towards the opposite side of the room. Doyle was standing near a table covered with plates of stuffed mushrooms.

“Hey, Doyle.”

Doyle finished chewing, then said, “Hey yourself, Gilmore. Here you’re doing some work for the New Yorker.”

“Not as much as I’d like, but I’m doing all right.” Rory smiled in what she hoped was an upbeat, can-do attitude sort of way.

“Glad to hear it. I was never quite sure about your post-college prospects, it’s nice to see you doing something productive with your life. And who’s this?”

“Oh, right, you haven’t met. Doyle, this is Jess Mariano. Jess, Doyle.”

Jess shook Doyle’s hand. Rory didn’t have to be looking at him to know that he was smirking.

“Is he a journalist too?” Doyle asked. “Can’t say I’m familiar with the name, but then, I don’t pay that much attention to any of the smaller publications.”

“Not a journalist. I work at an independent book press,” Jess said, holding himself a bit more stiffly.

Rory was quick to leap to his defense. “He’s also working on his second novel.”

“Oh, a novelist,” Doyle said, nodding as though he could tell Rory all sorts of terrible things about novelists, but was choosing not to.

“That’s right,” Jess said sharply.

Doyle seemed to think for a minute, then turned back to Rory. “So, I ran into Roger last week,” he said. “Remind me why you two broke up?”

“Hey, I see Paris over there. I’m gonna go say hi,” Jess said. Rory couldn’t decide whether or not she was grateful that he’d chosen to extricate himself at that moment.

“So?” Doyle prompted when Jess was gone.

Rory shifted her weight. “It just didn’t work out.”

“Oh right, the bullshit generic excuse. You know, if you’re ever going to be a successful journalist, you’re going to have to start giving more attention to detail.”

“It’s none of your business.” And God, was she tired of saying that.

“Okay. I just never pegged you for a wuss who’d leave the job of a lifetime just because of a stupid breakup. I was hoping you’d tell me there was more to the story than that.” Doyle took another stuff mushroom and popped it in his mouth.

“I don’t want to talk about Roger.”

“You don’t want to talk about him? Fine, but remember Gilmore, the world of journalism is small. You’re bound to run into each other eventually. And if, as I suspect, there was a larger issue behind your completely generic breakup, you’re going to have to prepare yourself for that eventuality.”

“Nice talking to you, Doyle,” Rory said, plastering a large fake smile across her face before stalking off. She finally managed to locate Jess, who was standing near Paris and watching with an amused smile as she argued fiercely with the woman next to her.

Rory went towards him. He smirked.

“Wish I’d brought popcorn,” he said, cocking his head towards Paris and the other woman.

“Notes From the Underground is typical chauvinistic man-pain,” Paris said sharply. “All he does is sit around complaining about how ineffective he is. The whole thing reads like a bad joke about male novelists.”

“But that’s exactly the point!” the woman she was arguing with said. “I thought you of all people would have some grasp of authorial intent! Dostoevsky spends the whole book implicitly condemning his main character.”

“If that’s true, then why do so few people seem to share your interpretation? He’s not doing a very good job of condemning it, if ninety percent of the male population seems to identify with the underground man. If an author wants to satirize a character, they have an obligation to make sure that they don’t end up perpetrating the behaviors they’re trying to satirize.”

“Whether or not he’s condemning his protagonist, isn’t Notes From the Underground still important because of the role it played in the existentialist movement?” Rory asked. “Nietzsche himself said that Dostoevsky was the only psychologist he had anything to learn from.

Paris turned to look at her. “Rory, I didn’t see you there! This is Vanessa. She’s in my program at Harvard. We’ve been dating for three weeks and two days and it’s going very well.”

Vanessa held out her hand to Rory. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, you too.”

“Wait a minute, did you honestly just defend Dostoevsky by bringing up his role in existentialism?” Paris demanded, furrowing her eyebrows. “When I think of all the angst that came out of that movement! Did it ever occur to Sartre and Heidegger that if maybe they wouldn’t have to be so depressed about the human condition if they did something to improve it? Not to mention that Heidegger was literally a Nazi. Why is this studied as a legitimate subject to begin with?”

“Wait a minute,” Jess said. “You can’t clump all of the existentialists together like that. Camus was a pretty decent guy, all things considered, and Sartre was pretty actively against the Nazi party. These guys were alive during World War Two, you can’t blame them for being depressed about the state of the human condition. But I agree with you about Heidegger. The guy’s an asshole.”

The four of them continued to argue pleasantly for another twenty minutes before Paris broke it off abruptly. “I’m supposed to be mingling. There’s important connections to be made here, and I’m standing in a corner arguing with people I already know.”

“That’s fine, go talk to other people. I was just thinking we should leave anyway,” Rory said, eyes flicking for a moment to where Logan was standing several yards away.

“What? You just got here. Rory, you can’t leave now!” Paris followed Rory’s gaze. “Oh, come on. Are you really just leaving because Huntzberger is here? This could be one of the most important parties of your journalistic career!”

“I’ll risk it,” Rory said dryly.

“Fine, but tomorrow when someone else has gotten your dream job and you’re still stuck writing freelance, don’t come crying to me.” Paris grabbed Vanessa’s hand and they left to talk to someone.

“Are you ready?” Rory asked Jess.

“I’ve been ready since we got here. Paris and her girlfriend aren’t too bad, though,” he admitted. “They both made some pretty good points about anguish as an existential emotion. I’m going to have to read No Exit again.”

They left the building, but once they were outside they stood a few minutes in the cold winter air.

“The moon is huge tonight,” Rory said. She shivered slightly, but made no move towards the car.

“Yeah. I think there’s a name for when it gets like that, but I don’t remember what it is.”

“Me neither.”

They stood there for a moment in silence. Rory turned to Jess to say that they should go, but then they made eye contact, and the words died in her throat. He was close, much closer than she’d realized, and without really thinking she put a hand on his waist to steady herself. And maybe because it felt so familiar, or maybe because she’d missed the feeling of driving too fast down empty streets, or maybe because part of her knew it was inevitable, she leaned forward just a tiny bit and let their lips touch.

One of Jess’s hands went to her waist and the other threaded into her hair, pulling her hair out of the style it had taken 40 minutes for her to accomplish, but she found that she didn’t care as long as his hands didn’t stayed exactly where they were. Jess tasted like coffee and burnt sugar, and it took Rory a minute to realize that there was one flavor missing; he really had stopped smoking.

Rory leaned into him further and it felt like a first. His tongue slipped between her lips like a question, and poems were running through her head like a soundtrack as she pulled away from his lips to kiss along his jawline, all of the years falling away and leaving her raw and breathless and—

Someone cleared their throat. Rory pulled away and turned to see Logan standing there, looking at them with a challenge in his eyes and his hands in his pockets.

“Returning to your roots?” he asked. “I always knew you were more like your mother than you let on.” He didn’t wait for a response, just walked through the door to return to the party.

Rory couldn’t meet Jess’s eyes. “We should probably go.”

Jess didn’t press the issue. “You want me to drive? I didn’t drink anything.”

“Okay.”

They didn’t speak on the way back to the car. Logan’s words bout Rory being just like her mother kept running through her head like a song on repeat, mixed with everything Doyle had said about her being a wuss. It wasn’t until they reached the freeway that she spoke again.

“I want to tell you what happened with Roger,” Rory said. “Why we broke up.

Jess glanced at her for a second, then back to the road. “You sure?”

“Yeah.” I need to know you’ll understand, she thought.

“Okay.”

There was a pause while Rory tried to decide how to begin. She gripped leather of the car seat. “A few weeks before we broke up, I missed a period. I didn’t think I could possibly be pregnant, so I went to the doctor to see if anything was wrong.”

“And?” He wasn’t pushing, and for that she was grateful.

“I was. Pregnant, that is.”

How is that possible? I’m not judging, but—you bought condoms and hid them in your room the minute we discussed even the possibility of having sex, and I know you’ve been on the Pill since you were sixteen.”

“I had to go off the Pill.” Rory’s stomach churned just thinking about how stupid she’d been to let this happen. “I didn’t quite understand what was going on, but I was having these awful headaches and my doctor said I needed to stop taking it until we were sure what was causing them. We were still using condoms, and I thought that was enough.”

“But it wasn’t?”

“Roger—he didn’t know how to put them on right. He never told me.” Rory looked out the side window. “I didn’t even think to ask.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know.”

“So what did you do?”

“Well, Roger wanted me to get an abortion,” Rory said, looking down at her hands. They were folded neatly in her lap. She couldn’t remember putting them there.

“How very Hills Like White Elephants of him.”

“I should have known you’d find a way to bring Hemingway into this,” Rory said. She tried to keep a lighthearted tone, but Jess was looking at her too seriously.

“So what happened?”

“I thought about it for a while and decided that it wasn’t the right time for me to have a kid. So I set up an appointment.” For the first time since their kiss, she risked making eye contact with Jess. His gaze was steady on the road, but he still managed to meet her eyes before speaking again.

“So you had an abortion.”

“No.” She looked away. This was the part that always confused her. It didn’t make sense, after all that had happened, that in the end she’d been absolved from having to make the choice. “I miscarried just a few days before the appointment.”

“Must have been a relief.”

“It was.” Rory kept her eyes carefully trained on the road and forced herself to keep speaking. “But then I felt bad for not feeling sorry. The timing was wrong, and I knew that, but part of me felt like I should give the kid a chance, like my mom did for me.”

“You’re not her,” Jess said. “You don’t have to make the same choices she did.”

“That’s what everyone keeps telling me.”

“So what happened between you and Roger after that?”

“Things just fell apart. I couldn’t forgive him for not telling me he didn’t know how to use condoms, and I hated that he was pressuring me to get an abortion, even though it was what I wanted too. I couldn’t stand the fact that he thought he should get some sort of say in it.” Rory was quiet for a moment, then added, “I wasn’t in love with him anyway.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

“How do you know you didn’t love him?” Jess asked.

“Because I didn’t feel like I couldn’t breathe when he was gone.”

Neither spoke for a while, but then, all of a sudden, Jess laughed.

“What?” Rory asked.

“It’s nothing. I just remembered something I’d forgotten about.”

“What?” she repeated.

“Remember that time I showed up late to your grandmother’s house with a black eye?”

“You got hit in the face with a football, but you were embarrassed to tell me. I still don’t know why.”

“I lied,” Jess said. “It was a swan.”

“A swan?”

“Yep.”

“No. Seriously?”

“Seriously. Just came up and beaked me in the eye.” Outside the car window, it was starting to rain. Jess flipped on the windshield wipers.

“I didn’t know that swans did that,” Rory said.

“I didn’t either, until it happened. I went after it with a ladle, can you believe that? Luke laughed at me about it for weeks.”

“I wouldn’t have laughed.”

Jess nodded slowly. “Yeah. I know.”

*****

Meeting him at the bridge had become a habit, so it was no surprise at all when the next day found her sitting there, feet dangling and waiting for Jess to find her so she could complain about what it was doing to her to be back in Stars Hollow.

In retrospect, she should have known that Jess wouldn’t be so predictable.

The conversation started with the same pattern it usually did, and Rory was relieved (or at least, did a pretty good job convincing herself that it was relief she was feeling) that there was no mention of the kiss. But then, in the midst of her venting, Jess broke the script.

“Do you want my opinion?”

The air smelled like snow. Rory wondered when she’d developed her mother’s ability to notice. “Sure.”

“Being here isn’t doing you any good. I think you should just take off an go somewhere else until the wedding. You’re driving yourself crazy, staying here.”

“Mom needs my help.”

Jess spoke clearly. “Bull.”

“Excuse me?”

“That women has planned dozens of weddings in her time working at the inn. And what about Sookie and Michel, do you really think they’re incapable of helping her? She wants you here because she thinks you want to be here. If you told her you wanted to get out of here, do you really think she’d stop you? You’re twenty-five, you’re living in Manhattan—do you know how few twenty-five year olds actually make it to Manhattan and can afford to stay? What I’m saying is, you’re in a pretty sweet situation right now. No one would blame you for not wanting to stay in Stars Freaking Hollow for months on end.”

“If you still hate it so much, why are you here?” Rory snapped. She pushed a clump of hair out of her face angrily. It hadn’t been entirely dry when she left the house, and now it was freezing in clumps.

Jess was quiet for a minute. “Right now, or in general?”

“Both.” She crossed her arms and waited.

“Right now, it’s because you needed someone to go with you to that party and I didn’t want to get a bus all the way to Brooklyn last night. In general, it’s because you or Luke or Liz or someone else I care about asks me to be here.”

“So you’re here for the same reasons as me,” Rory said triumphantly. “Mom asked me to come, so I’m here.”

“She’s asking too much of you. You think I can’t tell you’re not happy here?”

“So you think I should just leave. Of course you do,” Rory snapped. “That’s your solution to everything, right? I guess it doesn’t matter that there are people here who need me.”

“Oh, come on. Are you really bringing up something I did six years ago to avoid facing the fact that you’re too scared to do what you really want?”

“I don’t care that it was six years ago! You didn’t even say goodbye! And to be honest, I wasn’t even surprised.” Rory knew that she wasn’t being fair, but the words kept spilling out of her mouth, the way they had when she and her mother had fought about Dean. How many things had she kept bottled up over the years without realizing it, and how many would break and spill before she’d even realized she was still upset?

Jess stood up. “That’s not fair, and you know it! I had to leave, can’t you understand that? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, and I’m sorry I didn’t call, but you know I did what I had to do.”

“What you had to do was be there for me while I was graduating high school! What you had to do was take me to the only dance I ever cared about going to!” Rory stood up too, facing him with her arms crossed.

“Rory, I know you cared a lot about that stupid dance, but sooner or later you’re going to have to realize that finding a place to crash while I got my shit together was a little more important to me than getting all dressed up and sitting in a room full of people I hated for three hours.”

“You had a place to stay.” Rory shivered. She couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or from anger.

“No, I didn’t! Luke kicked me out, did he ever bother to tell you that?”

“Luke wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, he did. He said if I didn’t go back to school, I couldn’t stay with him.”

“Then you should have gone back and finished high school!” Rory stamped her foot, too far gone to care how childish she was acting.

“Oh, come on, Rory. You know I couldn’t. And besides, I seem to remember you being in exactly the same situation when I came to see you at your grandparents’ house!”

“That was different. I was trying to figure out what I needed to do with my life. I went back after just a few months!”

“Only because I made you go back! Face it, Rory, we’re not that different! And what about your mom? She never finished high school either. In fact, I’m pretty damn sure she was even younger than I was when she dropped out. So if you’re going to be all uptight about people running away, why don’t you ever give her a freaking lecture for leaving home with no warning?”

“It’s not the same.” Rory’s voice broke on the word “not.”

“It’s exactly the same. Ask her, I bet she’d back me up on that one.” Jess yanked his duffle bag over his should. “I have a bus to catch.”

Rory watched him leave.

When he was finally out of sight, the first snowflakes fell.

Chapter Text

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful girl and a Beast. The girl lived with the Beast as penance for the sins of her father—was that right? The sins of her father? Surely there was a better reason. The class she’d taken on courtroom justice hadn’t said anything about girls being punishable for their father’s sins. Well, at any rate, the girl lived in the Beast’s home, and read the Beast’s books, and grew to love her captor—or had he captured her? Maybe he’d just left out a book and let her read it. So the girl lived with the Beast, and grew to love him—but not in a Stockholm Syndrome kind of way, right, because that wouldn’t be romantic and this is a Fairy Tale, fairy tale fairy tale. The girl lived with the Beast and maybe the penance was for her own sins—hadn’t she been the one to ask for a rose? A rose, that’s an interesting symbol, right, it’s supposed to be about love, or maybe sex or loss of innocence—unless those two were the same thing? And once upon a time the girl lived with the Beast and grew to love him, but then the girl left—only hadn’t the Beast been the one to leave? Who had left, and why?

Once upon a time there was a girl who went to live with a Beast and one of them left and forgot to come back but he wasn’t a Beast at all and they all lived happily ever after because it’s a fairy tale fairy tale fairy tale and what was the rose supposed to represent again? Why can’t she remember?

*****

Rory didn’t shy away from conflict the way she had when she was younger, but in the aftermath of her fight with Jess, it was all she could do not to hide away inside herself. Instead, she stayed on the bridge, watching the snow fall and taking stock of the things she knew and the things she didn’t know.

What she knew: her mother had left Hartford and come to Stars Hollow, where they’d built a pretty good life, all things considered.

What she didn’t know: whether Jess was right and it was the same as what he’d done when he left her.

The snow made a quiet blanket over the bridge, as though she weren’t in the same place anymore. She wondered if Jess’s bus would be delayed.

Rory had always been so comfortable in the assumption that her mother had made the right choice. But where had Christopher been at that time? How had he felt when he got the news that his daughter and her mother were gone? He and Lorelei had broken up by then, but wouldn’t it have affected him? Rory didn’t know very much about her parents at that point. When she was younger she hadn’t understood enough to ask the right questions, and later, she’d feared the answer to much to find out. So many things she’d never asked.

She shivered under her coat, but didn’t want to go back inside to where there were distractions until she’d figured out what she need to know. She’d always blamed Christopher for leaving, but he’d stayed in school, hadn’t he? And that would mean that he was a senior when Lorelai left home. Rory shifted uncomfortably, accidentally sitting on a patch of snow, and tried to picture her dad sitting in Physics while she and her mother had been on a bus to Stars Hollow. The image wouldn’t stay put. The two were incongruous. How could Christopher have been sitting calmly in school while the whole world was shifting for good?

Lorelai had always seemed sturdier than Chris, less likely to float away on a current. But she had left first, and he’s spent his whole life trying to follow her but falling short.

Rory had spent so long worrying that she was just a less-good copy of her mother that she’d almost forgotten that she had a whole other parent. She tried to create a parallel of the scenario with her as Christopher and Jess as Lorelai, but that didn’t fit. She was more grounded than her father, and Jess and her mother had been damaged in entirely different ways. It wasn’t exactly the same, like Jess had said, but it was still too close for comfort.

The air smelled crisp. It made Rory think of snowmen: the one she and her mother had made for the contest all those years ago, and the other one, the one that she and Jess had destroyed together so it wouldn’t win.

*****

By Thursday Rory still hadn’t spoken to Jess again. She didn’t want to wait another six years, but she also didn’t want to talk to him when she had nothing to say. The afternoon dragged on. Around four, she sat at her desk and looked through the book of poetry Roger had bound for her. Some of the poems had been chosen so long ago that she couldn’t remember why she had picked them. Rory ran her fingers over the pages, which felt stiff and new and not like how a poem should feel.

The doorbell rang. She got up from her chair and went to answer it.

Lane was standing on her porch, holding a CD and looking worried.

“Oh, hi, Lane! I didn’t realize you were coming over.”

“Well, I was in the neighborhood.” Pause. “Or, a neighborhood. Actually, I wasn’t nearby at all but I had something I wanted to give you so I thought I’d drop by.” Lane drummed her fingers on her jeans.

“Do you want to come in?” Rory asked, gesturing inside of the door.

“No, I need to get back to the kids pretty soon. Anyway, this is for you.” Lane handed her the CD. “It’s the new Flaming Lips album. I also made you brownies, but then Kwan started climbing on a bookshelf and I had to pull him down, and then Steve started screaming, and by the time I remembered about the there was no hope left for them. Think Spinal Tap drummer.” She said this all very quickly. “So there’s no brownies after all. Just the CD.”

Rory took the CD and looked at it. The cover featured a hand pressing down on a face, and lots of hair. “Lane, not that I don’t love these seemingly random acts of kindness, but what’s going on?” she asked, laughing a bit.

Lane’s fingers drummed even faster on her jeans “I need a favor.”

“What is it?”

“Zach wants to take me camping.”

“So?”

“So, I kind of made it sound like I remotely know what I’m doing and now he expects me to be some sort of Wonder Woman who knows how to pitch a tent and go fishing, or whatever it is people do when they’re camping.” Lane gestured loosely as though trying to indicate something someone camping might do.

Rory gaped at her. “Well, what do you want me to do? I don’t go camping.”

“I know, but I thought you and me could spend a night out in the woods somewhere this weekend, just so I can get some practice figuring out which poles go where so I don’t make an idiot out of myself.”

Rory groaned. “Lane, you know I’ve never been camping. Can’t you just tell Zach you don’t want to go?”

“But he’s so excited! He’s started making all these plans, and we’ve already talked to my mom about babysitting—come on, Rory, I’ll owe you big time. Whatever you want.”

The CD didn’t have the shrink wrapped packaging on it anymore. Lane must have already listened to it. “Fine,” Rory said.

“Thank you thank you thank you!” Lane said. “Can you do Saturday? It’s just going to get colder if we wait, and it’s finally stopped snowing.”

Rory looked past Lane to the yard. The snow may have melted, but the air still felt far to crisp to sleep outside in. “Are you sure he wants to go camping soon? It’s December, couldn’t he have waited for a better time of year?”

Lane shook her head. “I don’t know why he picked now, I just know that I need to figure out how to do it. Pack warm things.”

“I don’t even have a sleeping bag.”

“Zach has an extra. It think it’s one of those thermal ones.”

“Fine, we can do Saturday,” Rory said. Then, looking down at the CD in her hand, “The Flaming Lips? Really?”

“Hey, you promised you’d give them a chance!”

Rory leaned against the doorframe. “All I’m saying is that in the future when you’re trying to bribe me, you should maybe bring a CD of a band I already like.”

“But you do like the Flaming Lips, you just don’t know it yet.”

Rory rolled her eyes.

“I really do need to go now. You promise you won’t bail out on me?”

“Promise.”

That evening for their Thursday Night Dinner, Rory and her mother picked up tacos from Al’s Pancake World, then drove around for a while looking for a place to eat. Finally they gave up, and ate in the car in a parking lot outside of a grocery store in Hartford. It was almost deserted, only a few cars scattered around the lot. The car was very dark.

“See, this is fun!” Lorelai said. “Eating somewhere different.” She pulled the tacos out of the bag and handed one to Rory.

Rory took the taco and narrowed her eyes sardonically “You know, driving around this much is a blight on the environment. If we really wanted to eat in the car we should have just stayed in our own driveway.”

“Pah! Where’s the fun in that?” Lorelai lifted her coffee out of the cup holder, but didn’t drink any.

Rory set her taco down her on lap. “Oh, right, my mistake. We like burning fossil fuels. Go, destruction of nature!”

“You sound like Luke. What’s the deal, Grumpypants?”

“I’m sorry if I don’t love the idea of destroying all of the habitable parts of the world.”

“Rory, what’s going on with you?” Lorelai asked gently. “I mean, not that I don’t love the new strides towards environmentalism. But come on. You’ve been acting upset with me all week. And we said we would talk about things that are bothering us.”

“It’s not you.” A streetlight flickered near the car window. “I just—I had a fight with Jess, all right?”

“Ooh, juicy.” Lorelai pulled a taco out the bag. “What happened? I want details.”

“There’s nothing to tell!”

“Come on, you know you can talk to me.”

“I guess so.” Rory took a bite out of her taco to avoid having to say anything else. The shredded lettuce felt out of the sides and into her lap.

Lorelai looked at her expectantly. “Okay, so spill.”

Rory looked down at the lettuce on her lap. “Um, you know how Jess and I went to the Yale Daily News thing together?” Her voice sounded too quiet. It always sounded too quiet in this sort of situation, like she was confessing to something. She didn’t want it to be a confession, she wanted it to be a statement of fact.

“What happened?” Lorelai prompted.

“It’s no big deal.” The lettuce was a bit wilted, probably left over from Al’s Worlds of Salads party last week. “We— we kissed, and then we fought, and I don’t know how I feel about either of those things except that I’m a failure who can’t even move on from a guy she dated six years ago.”

Lorelai put her hand on Rory’s arm and rubbed it comfortingly. “Sweetie, you are not a failure.”

“How do you know?”

“Are you accusing me of having birthed a failure?” Lorelai asked in mock offense. Then, more seriously, “I know you’re not a failure because I know you. Sometimes it takes you a long time to figure out where you need to be, but you always end up getting there. I don’t think this will be any different.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Rory said. Something inside of her still felt unsettled, but rather than speaking, she took a bite of her taco and let the moment pass.

*****

Saturday afternoon came before Rory realized it, and at two she was packing frantically to be ready in time to leave. She’d just crammed her clothes into the duffel and was debating what else to put in it when the doorbell rang. As she was walking to the front door, it rang again, then several more times in quick succession. Rory pulled open the door to the sight of a very distressed looking Paris, holding a bag tightly under her arm. Her hair was up in a tight bun, a sure sign of trouble.

“Hi,” Rory said, wondering if the confusion showed on her face.

“You sure took your sweet time opening the door.” Paris snapped. Rory stepped back instinctively, and Paris barreled past her into the house. “Oh, that’s right, why not leave your friend on the doorstep for five minutes because you can’t be bothered to go see who it is? What if I’d been bleeding from an internal injury?”

“Then I’d ask why you’d driven all the way to Stars Hollow when there are many hospitals in Boston with what I presume are doctors with much more education in the medical profession than I have,” Rory replied.

Paris sneered at her. “Oh, very funny.” She marched into Rory’s room, leaving Rory no choice but to follow her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, sitting down on the bed.

Paris paced anxiously in front of her. The pacing itself wasn’t that unusual except that it was even faster than she normally moved. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong? My life is in shambles, and you ask me what’s wrong?”

“Well?” Rory asked, eyes drifting to Paris’ overnight back.

Paris looked lost for a second before snapping back into focus. “Vanessa and I had a fight.”

“Oh no. What happened?” Rory asked.

“I found out that she’s opposed to private education. I tried to explain to her the merits of being able to be in a more rigorous academic setting, but she’s convince that the privatization of education is a way to further separate the classes and allow the rich opportunities that aren’t given to anyone else.” Paris sat down on Rory’s desk chair.

“Paris—”

“So I told her she was being ridiculous, but she didn’t want to—are you going somewhere?” she asked, looking at Rory’s half-packed suitcase.

“Yeah.”

“Rory, I really need you right now,” Paris said quietly. “If you leave, I’m going to have to go back, and then we might argue again, and I don’t know if I can take that right now. And it’d be admitting defeat. I don’t admit defeat.” She looked at Rory appeasingly.

Rory looked away. “Paris, I’m really sorry, but I promised Lane I’d go with her.”

“Fine. Then I’m coming too,” Paris told her firmly. “Where are you going, anyway?”

“We’re going camping.”

Paris held up her hands. “You know, if you don’t want to tell me where you’re going just say so.”

“Paris, we really are going camping.”

Paris furrowed her brow. “But you hate camping.”

“I’ve never been camping!”

“Well, you’re going to hate camping. You’re not the type of person who likes to sleep under a canvas sheet in the middle of nowhere with no internet. Why even bother going? You should stay here.”

“I promised Lane I’d go.”

Paris looked torn, then crossed her arms. “Fine. If you’re going camping, then so am I.”

“Do you have a sleeping bag with you? It’s freezing outside. I don’t want your dead body on my hands.”

“Of course I have a sleeping bag, I keep one in the back of my car for emergencies. What kind of person doesn’t keep a sleeping bag in the back of their car? What would you do if your car broke down at night and you didn’t have a sleeping bag? How would you stay warm? Am I the only person in the world who thinks these things through?”

“Great,” Rory said, sighing loudly and throwing up her arms. “I’ll call Lane and tell her you’re coming with us.”

Paris went to the kitchen for some coffee, and Rory looked down at the items laid out on her bag. Finally, she put all of them back except for a single print-out she’d been looking at all week, which she put in her purse.

Lane agreed that Paris could come, but they drove in two cars; Paris had refused to leave hers behind in Stars Hollow. They arrived at the campsite at five o’clock in the afternoon, and it was already getting dark dark. Rory lugged the tent bag out of the back of her car and onto the ground.

The three of them looked at it warily. “It can’t be that bad,” Lane said finally, and yanked open the zipper. “Aha! An instruction manual.”

“Let me see that,” demanded Paris. Lane tossed it to her.

Rory started to pull things out of the bag. “So I see what seems to be a tarp, and some other fabricy-type things.”

“I think that one’s the tent,” Lane said, grabbing the larger one.

“Well, how do we put it up?” Rory asked, walking around the bag to get a closer look at it.

“There’s a picture here,” Paris said, holding the booklet in front of her face. “Do you see any poles? There’s supposed to be poles.”

Rory dug through the bag, but found nothing.

Paris’ voice started to rise. “Do you see any poles? Because I don’t see any poles, and if I have to sleep on the ground tonight because we can’t find any poles, I am not going to be happy, you hear? I will die of exposure, and then I will turn into a ghost and haunt you until you die.”

Lane dug through the tent bag. “I don’t see any poles.”

“What are you talking about, there has to be poles!”

Nobody spoke for a moment; then Lane put her head in her hands. “No no no no no.”

“What’s going on?” Rory asked.

“Zach set it up in the backyard for the boys to play in over the summer. Goddamn it, he must have left the poles somewhere.”

“What are we going to do? I am not sleeping on the ground.”

“Calm down, Paris. We’re not sleeping on the ground,” Rory said. “There was a nice little lodge just a few miles up the road. I’ll call and see if they have any rooms.”

*****

An hour later, they were sitting on the floor of the room they’d rented, facing an electric fireplace and eating marshmallows.

“I like camping,” Lane said, taking a large bite of a marshmallow.

“This does beat sleeping on the ground,” Rory said. “Hey, you should tell Zach to take you here instead of sleeping in the woods.”

“After leaving me stranded with no tent poles, I think he’ll feel bad enough to take me wherever I want. Possibly a rock concert.”

“We should celebrate,” Paris said. “Where do they keep those tiny bottles of booze?”

“There should be a tiny cupboard. Check under the TV,” Lane said.

Paris leaned forward and yanked at a few things. At last, she located the alcohol and pulled out a few tiny bottles. “Cheers!” she said, handing one to each of them.

“I’m having vivid flashbacks of the last time the three of us got drunk together,” Rory said. “I think I’ll pass.”

“Oh, come on, it’s not like you have a guy to start sobbing over this time,” Paris said, twisting the cap off her bottle of Schnapps.

Rory looked down.

“I was joking,” Paris said. She looked at Rory with concern.

“I know. I just can’t believe I did that.” So many things she’d done, so many stupid mistakes made about boys who didn’t matter. So how could she be sure that Jess mattered? How could she know that it wouldn’t be another mistake in a long line of mistakes? Like mother, like daughter, she thought, then immediately felt guilty.

“Are you upset about something?” Lane asked.

Rory shook her head, ignoring the tightness in her chest. “I’m just tired of being back in Stars Hollow,” she admitted finally. And that was part of it, a large part of it if she were honest with herself.

“Then why don’t you leave?” Paris demanded.

Rory closed her eyes and put her head in her hands. “You sound just like Jess. You know, not everyone is good at just getting up and leaving the minute a situation isn’t working out for them.”

“How is the situation with Jess?” Lane asked. She had two marshmallows hanging precariously on her stick; one collapsed and landed in the fire.

“I don’t know,” Rory said. Her head was pounding.

“Wait, are you and Jess dating again?” Paris asked. “You said you were just friends. Why didn’t you tell me you were dating again? He’s the only one of your boyfriends I’ve ever found tolerable!”

Rory watched the flames consume the dropped marshmallow. “We aren’t dating.” She took a deep breath, trying to get up the courage to ask the right question. “Lane?”

“Yeah?” Lane was putting another marshmallow on her stick.

“How did you know that Zach was the one?”

Lane set down the marshmallow and looked at her. “I didn’t. I still don’t.”

“But—”

“Look, I know it’s supposed to be some sort of voice in the sky or something, but it wasn’t for me.” Lane’s voice seemed more sure than Rory had ever heard it. “I didn’t hear the Beatles or see a sunset or anything like that. I just knew I loved Zach, and I knew that I was happy.”

“Why are you asking?” Paris asked. “Did something happen between you and Jess? Why do I feel like I’m the only one who has no idea what’s going on in this conversation?”

Annoyance rose inside of Rory. “We kissed, okay? We kissed, and then we fought, and now he’s gone.”

“Define gone,” Paris said, narrowing her eyes slightly.

Rory looked down at the ugly beige rug. “He went back to New York.”

“Then he’s not gone.”

“Excuse me?”

“You live in New York. He went back to New York, knowing that you live there and could easily find him. That’s not the same thing as being gone. If he’d wanted to be gone he’d have gone somewhere you couldn’t find him. Jamaica, Atlantic City, Hollywood. He wouldn’t have gone back to New York where he knows you can find him.”

“She’s right,” Lane said. “When he left high school he went to Venice Beach, didn’t he? Why would he go to New York if he was really trying to leave?”

“You should go after him,” Paris said. “You should go after him and tell him you still love him, before you end up married to some guy who doesn’t know the different between Schrödinger’s Cat and Pavlov’s Dogs.”

“My taste in men isn’t that bad.” Rory protested. She still couldn’t look either of her friends in the eye.

“All I’m saying is, you need to take chances like this while they still exist. Who cares if it’s a bit weird that you can’t seem to help getting back together with all of your exes?” Paris asked. “Does that chance the fact that Jess is by far the most interesting guy you’ve ever dated? You’re miserable because you feel like he left. What if he actually leaves for good because you’ve made him think that you’re not interested”

“Since when have you been such an expert in love?” Rory snapped. “Aren’t you here because you had a fight with your girlfriend?”

“We’re not talking about me right now.”

“Well, maybe I don’t want us to be talking about me right now, either!”

“You brought it up, Gilmore. If you hadn’t wanted to talk about this, you shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“She’s right,” said Lane. “You were happier when you were dating Jess than you’ve been with any other guy.”

“That doesn’t mean I should date him now.”

“What have you got to lose?” Paris asked. “Come on, it’s not like you’d be screwing up some phenomenal track record.”

“Hey!”

“She’s never had to fight for anything,” Lane explained to Paris as though Rory weren’t there. “So she doesn’t think she can.”

“I have too had to fight for things!”

“Name one,” Paris demanded.

“I had to fight to keep up with you in school!”

“At a private school that you got into with no real effort that was paid for by your grandparents,” Paris retorted.

Rory opened her mouth to respond, then closed it. “I need some air,” she finally said. She grabbed her coat, which had been lying on one of the beds, and left the room without waiting for a response from either of her friends. She walked outside into the frigid air and wrapped her arms around herself, but once she was outside, she had to figure out if she could do what she’d been thinking about doing all week: calling Jess.

Her mother would call. If she were in this position, she wouldn’t even hesitate. Rory hesitated, because Rory was not her mother, and she needed to live her own life instead of making her mother’s mistakes.

But not calling Jess because it was what her mother would do was exactly the same as calling Jess because it was what her mother would do. Either way, she was her mother’s daughter. She couldn’t escape that burden. But she could try to make her choices for the right reasons.

Still, she stood in the cold, uncertainly fingering her phone in her pocket.

Finally, she took her phone out of her pocket and dialed. She wasn’t wearing gloves, so her fingers were numb, and it took her three tries to correctly click Jess’ number.

The phone rang. Rory waited.

“Hello?”

Rory considered hanging up.

“Hello?”

But if she hung up she’d end up calling him back, and besides, he could check the call records and know exactly who’d been on other end of the line. “Jess?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s Rory.”

There was a moment of dead silence, then, “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” Rory took a deep breath. “I’m sorry we fought.” She dug her toe into the ground.

Jess seemed to take a long time to reply. “I’m sorry too. I just can’t people dredging up the past. Something about yelling at me for mistakes I made when I was a kid just kind of sets my teeth on edge.”

It would have sounded passive-aggressive coming from anyone else, but it was Jess, and somehow it was all right. Rory sat down hard on the front step of the lodge relief coursing through her body.

“I have to admit, I didn’t really expect you to call,” Jess said.

“Oh.”

“I’m glad you did,” he added quickly.

“I want to see you,” Rory said. “We need to talk in person.”

“You in Stars Hollow?”

“I’m actually closer to New Haven. I was camping with Lane and Paris, only of course it didn’t work out, so now we’re in a lodge—it’s kind of complicated, actually.”

Jess laughed. “Sounds like quite the story. Look, I can borrow a car from my roommate. Should we meet in Stamford? That’s about halfway, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“I know a diner there.” Jess gave her the name and address.

“Cool. I guess—I guess I’ll see you there, then.”

Rory went back into the building and climbed the stairs to their room.

“Well?” Paris asked when she entered. “Did anything happen when you were outside?”

“What Paris is trying to say is that she bet me five dollars that you wouldn’t have the guts to call Jess,” Lane said.

“Hey!”

Paris shrugged. “Sorry, I just call it like I see it.”

“Well, you’d better pay up. I’m meeting him for coffee.”

Paris gaped at her. Lane looked smug. Finally, Paris said, “Way to go, Gilmore. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“I didn’t either,” Rory said. “I need to go. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

She grabbed her purse, then threw over her shoulder without thinking about it, another habit picked up on the campaign trail that she’d never been able to shake. Rory didn’t realize that she had all of her stuff with her until she’d reached the car, and by then, she didn’t care enough to climb back up the stairs. She drove to Stamford without stopping.

Jess was already there when she entered the diner. Rory could feel her face going red as she approached the table and sat down across from him. Jess closed his book and set it down the the table between them.

“Don’t say anything,” Rory said quickly, then blanched at her word choice. She reached into her purse and handed him the sheet of paper, suddenly understanding why she’d put the poem in her purse. “Read this when I’m gone.”

Jess quirked an eyebrow at her, but nodded.

A man came by and took Rory’s coffee order; Jess already had a cup in front of him.

“I was camping with Paris and Lane when I called,” Rory said, to prove that she hadn’t been sitting in her room pining over him.

Jess smirked. “You said.”

“Oh, right.”

“So what happened? You said there was a story behind it.”

Rory filled Jess in, including every detail she could think of to avoid having to talk about harder things. She even mentioned bringing the duffel bag in her car before admitting defeat and falling silent.

There were a few attempts at small talk, which quickly fell apart. Rory couldn’t stop thinking about the poem that Jess had pocketed, wondering what she had just done. Her coffee arrived after a few minutes, giving her something to do with her hands as they sat in silence.

“I’m glad you called when you did,” Jess said, after an excruciatingly long silence. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning. Going back to Philly.”

Rory looked up from her coffee. Her face flushed as they made eye contact, something she’d been trying to avoid. “Is the book finished?”

“Close. I can finish it there. The guys at the press need me to help back.”

Rory shook her head in amazement. “Wow. So you’re—going back to Philadelphia, then.” She tried to focus on the sounds from around the diner to stop herself from feeling upset by this, but the only thing she could hear besides Jess’ voice was the white noise from the freeway.

“I’ll be back for the wedding.”

Rory looked down. “I’m going to miss you.”

Jess took a breath so loud that Rory could hear it before saying, “Come with me.”

Rory’s head jerked up. For a minute, she thought she was imagining things, hallucinating scenes from when she was nineteen and couldn’t make the hard choice. “What?”

“Why not? What’s stopping you? You need to get the hell out of Stars Hollow, what better time to do it? You have a suitcase in the back of your car, for Christ’s sake. If you want to get out, this is the best chance you’re going to get.” Jess said.

“How are you getting there?” Rory asked, to give herself some time.

“Train.”

“I could drive,” she said without thinking.

Jess quirked an eyebrow at her. “Wow. I didn’t really expect you to go for it.”

Rory’s brain was reeling. “Wait a minute, I don’t know what I’m saying. I can’t just get up and leave—”

“Why not?”

Rory thought for a moment until she finally came up with an answer. “I can’t leave without saying goodbye to my mom.”

“I’m not leaving until morning.”

“And I need get the rest of my stuff.”

“Look, you don’t have to come. But if you decide you want to, I’ll be waiting at the Stars Hollow gazebo at 7:00 sharp.”

Rory shook her head. “Not the gazebo. Washington Square Park.”

Jess looked confused for a moment, then quirked his eyebrow at her. “Okay, but I’m going to have to spend most of tomorrow morning making fun of you for being so sentimental.”

“I look forward to it.”

Jess smirked at Rory as she stood to leave the diner. For a minute, she thought she was feeling sixteen again, but she wasn’t. She was twenty-five, and completely herself, and the man that was smiling at her was not the same as the boy who had broken her heart. She’d been a fool to get so mixed up about it.

She called Lane and Paris from the road explaining that she wouldn’t make it back to the lodge. Rory felt a bit odd leaving the two of them together when they barely knew each other, but both had assured her it would be fine, and Paris had promised to drive Lane back to Stars Hollow the next morning.

She spent the rest of the drive thinking of the Pablo Neruda poem, the one she’d given Jess at the diner. Sonnet XVII. Maybe he was reading it right now. Rory had looked at it so many times in the past week that she could visualize it even without the page in front of her:

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

“I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,” she said under her breath before realizing she was speaking out loud

It was very late when Rory arrived at her house. She’d considered calling, but if she’d called she’d have had to think about the fact that her mother might be asleep, and that would make her remember all of the other reasons why what she was about to do was hurtful and wrong.

Maybe there were more important things than being nice.

She knocked firmly.

Lorelai opened the door. “What’s wrong? I thought you were camping with the girls.”

“I was.” Rory bit her lip and looked down. “I have to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

“It’s really hard for me to say, so you have to promise you’ll listen, okay?”

“Of course. Come on, Sweetie, what is it.”

Rory shivered. “Mom, I have to leave.”

Lorelai nodded slowly. “For how long?”

“For good. I can’t stay here anymore, it’s—I can’t go backward.”

“I know.” It seemed as though Lorelai were trying to smile, but instead she just looked sad. “Are you going back to New York?”

“Philadelphia. But I might go to New York after that. I need to get some of my stuff.”

Lorelai nodded. “Come on in. I’ll get some coffee going.”

Rory went into her room, chest tight from the ghosts of memories that wouldn’t be haunting her anymore. There wasn’t much that needed packing. When she went through her bookshelf, her fingers hesitated on the boyfriend book, but she moved them away and grabbed the folder instead. After all, a good poem was a good poem. It didn’t need to be more than that.

She took her things out to her car, then returned and sat down for coffee. She had a long drive ahead of her, and for a moment wished that she just agreed to meet Jess at the gazebo.

Lorelai handed her a mug.

No, it had to be Washington Square park, because that was the first place Rory had ever escaped to with him. And now, now she was escaping again, because she didn’t want to be in Stars Hollow if Jess wasn’t in it too. He had changed the town, when he moved there eight years ago. When he left, Rory had blamed her feelings towards the town on his absence. Now, she wondered if growing up always left that sort of empty feeling, the loss of home.

It was time to create something new for herself.

“Will you talk to Grandpa and Grandma for me?” Rory asked, breaking the silence.

Lorelai nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”

“I don’t want them to be mad.”

“Oh, they’ll be mad all right. But they’re not your responsibility.”

Rory smiled, silently thanking her mother for understanding.

“I should go,” she said when she’d finished her coffee. “It’s a long drive back to New York.”

Lorelai nodded and led her to the door.

Rory stood in the doorway, feeling awkward and old beyond her years. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“Any time, kid.” Lorelai looked into the distance for a second, then her eyes focused back on Rory. “I owe you an apology. I shouldn’t have tried to hold on so tight.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Oh, it is. Everything was just falling into place—and I thought, what if Rory were here to enjoy it with me? What if I could pretend I hadn’t lost so much time learning how to get it together?”

“I wanted to enjoy it with you too,” Rory said, her eyes welling up with tears.

“But you were right. I was trying to make you go backwards. It was selfish. I just—wanted things to be how they were.” Lorelai grew quiet for a moment. “They haven’t been that way in a long time, have they? I have to let you grow up, even if that means growing away from me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Go to Philly. To Jess. I know you need to.”

Rory hugged her mother. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“I’ll see you at the wedding,” Lorelai said, hugging back hard.

“I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” Rory said. “Oh, and one more thing?”

“Of course.”

“Turn my room into the sewing studio you’ve always wanted.”

Lorelai gave her a watery smile. “You’ve got it, kid.”

Rory turned and walked toward her car, away from the house that hadn’t been home in years. She turned the key in the engine and left town, running the red light in front of Doose’s market, and she didn’t look back once.

Chapter Text

Rory didn’t go home for Christmas that year. She’d celebrated Christmas with her mother every year of her life, even if they didn’t always manage to celebrate it on the actual day. But sitting in the tiny living room of the one-bedroom apartment she shared with Jess, she felt like she was exactly where she needed to be.

She didn’t forgo all of her old traditions, though. There were strands of popcorn all around the tree, and there was mistletoe on the rickety ceiling fan. But there were different things too, like the fact that Jess insisted on opening one present each on Christmas Eve. After a long period of deliberation (and some advice from Lane) she’d gotten him a few vinyl albums, one of which she’d let him open that night. Now they were sitting together on the floor with their backs against the couch listening to it. There was an unopened package in Rory’s lap, but she was much more interested in talking to Jess.

“So the wedding’s coming up.” She trailed her fingers over his warm palm.

“Who’s wedding? Ours? You know Gilmore, it’s polite to propose first,” Jess teased.

“January 9th,” Rory continued. “They’re having it at the Dragonfly.”

“Yeah, I think you may have mentioned that half a dozen times or so.” Jess stretched out his legs further and put his arm around Rory. She leaned into him and put her head on his shoulder.

“And my grandparents are going to be there,” she continued.

Jess groaned.

“Hey, mister, you said you were serious about this whole thing. You’re going to have to see them at some point.”

“Think your grandma’s forgotten that dinner by this point?”

“I wouldn’t count on it. She can still recite the names of her fifteen least favorite maids from memory, as well as their reasons for being fired,” Rory replied matter-of-factly.

“So you’re saying that I have to meet your grandparents. On January 9th.”

“That’s right. Relax, what’s the worst they’ll do at a wedding?”

“Fine, but you owe me.”

“I owe you? I’m going to have to make small talk with TJ.”

Jess laughed. “Okay, fine, we’re even. Now don’t you have a present to open?”

“Oh, right.” Rory looked at the package in her lap.

“Well?” Jess said impatiently, kissing her neck. She shivered. “What are you waiting for? Open it.”

Rory carefully pulled the tape off the wrapping and unfolded the paper to save for later. Inside was a book. “Written by Jess Mariano,” she said quietly.

“I got you something else, too,” Jess said very quickly. “I know you probably want something besides a book that I wrote that I was going to let you read anyway, but I just thought that if we were opening one gift on Christmas Eve, I wanted this—”

“Jess,” Rory cut him off. “It’s perfect.”

Jess’ face broke out into a smile. “Really?”

“Really,” Rory said. She leaned towards him and pressed her lips to his. When they kissed, it wasn’t the sort of slow kiss you see in the movies before things fade to black. The Beatles didn’t play and there wasn’t a sunset. It wasn’t poetry.

It didn’t have to be.